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https://archive.org/details/aryanraceitsorig00morr/page/n1
ARYAN RACE
ITS ORIGIN AND ITS ACHIEVEMENTS
BY
CHARLES MORRIS
1888
PREFACE.
Itis our purpose briefly to outline the history of the
Aryan Race, — that great and noble family of
mankind which has played so striking a part upon the
stage of the world; to seek it in its primitive home,
observe the unfoldment of its beliefs and institutions,
follow it in its migrations, consider the features of its
intellectual supremacy, and trace the steps by which it
has gained its present high position among the races of
mankind. The story of this people, despite the great
interest which surrounds it, remains unwritten in any
complete sense. There are many books, indeed, which
deal with it fragmentarily, — some devoted to its lan-
guages, others to its mythology, folk-lore, village com-
munities, or to some other single aspect of its many
sided story; yet no general treatment of the subject
lias been essayed, and the inquirer who wishes to learn
what is known of this interesting people must painfully
delve through a score of volumes to gain the desired
information.
Until within a recent period the actual existence of
such a race was not clearly recognized. A century
iv
PREFACE.
ago there was nothing to show that nearly all the
nations of Europe and the most prominent of those
of southern Asia were first-cousins, descended from a
single ancestor, which, not very remotely in the past,
inhabited a contracted locality in some region as yet
unknown. Of late years much has been learned of the
conditions and mode of life of this people in their
original home, and of their migrations to the point
where they enter the field of written history. From
this point forward the part played by the Aryans in
the history of mankind has been a highly important
one, and there is no more interesting study than to
follow this giant from the days of its childhood to
those of its present imposing stature.
Our knowledge of the condition of the primitive
Aryans is not due only to studies in philology. The
subject has widened with the progress of research, and
now embraces questions of ethnology, archaeology,
mythology, literature, social and political antiquities,
and all the other branches of science which relate
particularly to the development of mankind. Enough
has been learned, through studies in these several
directions, to make desirable a general treatment of
the subject, and an effort to present as a whole the
story of that mighty race whose history is as yet
known to the world only in disconnected fragments.
The present work, however, pretends to be no more
than a preliminary handling of this extensive theme,
PREFACE.
V
a brief popular exposition which may serve to fill a
gap in the realm of literature and to satisfy the curi-
osity of the reading world until some abler hand shall
grasp the subject and deal with it in a more exhaustive
manner.
Any attempt, indeed, to tell the story of the Aryan
race, even in outline, during the recent age of mankind
would be equivalent to an attempt to write the history
of civilization, — which is far from our purpose. But
in the comparison of the intellectual conditions and
products of the several races of mankind, and in the
consideration of the evolution of human institutions
and lines of thought and action, we have a field of
research which is by no means exhausted, and with
which the general world of readers is very little con-
versant. Our work will therefore be found to be
largely comparative in treatment, the characteristics
and conditions of the other leading races of mankind
being considered, and contrasted with those of the
Aryan, with the purpose not only of clearly showing
the general superiority of the latter, but also of point-
ing out the natural steps of evolution through which
it emerged from original savagery and attained to its
present intellectual supremacy and advanced stage of
enlightenment.
As regards the sources of the information con-
veyed in the following pages, we shall but say that
all the statements concerning questions of fact have
VI
PREFACE.
been drawn from trustworthy authors, many of whom
are quoted in the text, — though it has not been
deemed necessary to crowd the pages with citations
of authorities.
In respect to the theoretical views advanced, they
are as a rule the author’s own, and must stand or fall
on their merits. Finally, it is hoped that the work
may prove of interest and value to those who simply
desire a general knowledge of the subject, and may in
some measure serve as a guide to those more ardent
students who prefer to continue the study by the
consultation of original authorities.
CONTENTS.
Page
I. Types op Mankind.............................. 1
II. The Home of the Aryans........................30
III. The Aryan Outflow.............................54
IY. The Aryans at Home............................89
Y. The Household and the Village................106
YI. The Double System of Aryan Worship .... 132
VII. The Course of Political Development .... 153
VIII. The Development of Language..................189
IX. The Age of Philosophy...................... 215
X. The Aryan Literature.........................243
XI. Other Aryan Characteristics..................2/3
XII. Historical Migrations........................290
XIII. The Puture Status of Human Paces.............308
INDEX
335
#
THE ARYAN RACE.
i.
TYPES OF MANKIND.
OMEWHERE, no man can say just where ; at some
time, it is equally impossible to say when, — there
dwelt in Europe or Asia a most remarkable tribe or family
of mankind. Where or when this was we shall never
clearly know. No history mentions their name or gives
a hint of their existence; no legend or tradition has
floated down to us from that vanished realm of life. Not
a monument remains which we can distinguish as reared
by the hands of this people; not even the grave of one of
its members can be traced. Flourishing civilizations were
even then in existence; Egypt and China wrere already
the seats of busy life and active thought. Yet no prophet
of these nations saw the cloud on the sky “ of the size of
a man’s hand,” — a cloud destined to grow until its mighty
shadow should cover the whole face of the earth. As yet
the fathers of the Aryan race dwelt in unconsidered bar-
barism, living their simple lives and thinking their simple
thoughts, of no more apparent importance than hundreds
of other primeval tribes, and doubtless undreaming of the
grand part they were yet to play in the drama of human
history.
1
2
THE ARYAN RACE.
Yet strangely enough this utterly prehistoric and ante-
legendary race, this dead scion of a dead past, has been
raised from its grave and displayed in its ancient shape
before the eyes of man, until we know its history as satis-
factorily as we know that of many peoples yet living upon
the face of the earth. We may not know its time or place
of existence, the battles it fought, the heroes it honored,
the songs it sang. But we know the words it spoke, the
gods it worshipped, the laws it made. We know the char-
acter of its industries and its possessions, its family and
political relations, its religious ideas and the conditions of
its intellectual development, its race-characteristics, and
much of the details of its grand migrations after its
growing numbers swelled beyond the boundaries of their
ancestral home, and went forth to conquer and possess
the earth.
How we have learned all this forms one of the most
interesting chapters in modern science. The reality of
our knowledge cannot be questioned. No history is half
so trustworthy. Into all written histoiy innumerable errors
creep ; but that unconscious history which survives in the
languages and institutions of mankind is, so far as it goes,
of indisputable authenticity. It is not, indeed, history in
its ordinary sense. It yields us none of the superficial and
individual details in the story of a people’s life, the deeds
of warriors and the tyrannies of rulers, the conquests,
rebellions, and class-struggles, the names and systems of
priests and law-givers, with which historians usually deal,
and which they weave into a web of inextricably-mingled
truth and falsehood. It is the rock-bed of history with
which we are here concerned, the solid foundation on
which its superficial edifice is built. We know nothing of
TYPES OF MANKIND.
3
the deeds of this antique race. We are ignorant of the
numbers of its people, the location and extent of its terri-
tory, the period of its early development. But we know
much of its basal history, —that history which has wrought
itself deeply into the language, customs, beliefs, and insti-
tutions of its modern descendants, and which crops out
everywhere through the soil of modern European civiliza-
tion, as the granite foundations of the earth’s strata break
through the superficial layers, and reveal the conditions of
the remote past.
Such a germinal history of a people may very possibly
lack interest. It has in it nothing of the dramatic, nothing
on which the imagination can seize ; none of those per-
sonal details or stirring incidents which so strongly arrest
the attention of readers ; nothing to arouse the feelings or
awaken the passions and emotions of mankind. It has
none of the ever-alluring interest of individual human life,
— the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, the sajungs
and doings of men, great and small, which give to the
gossipy details of history an attractiveness only a degree
below that of the imaginative novel. Over our work we
can cast none of this glamour of individualism. We have
to do with man in the mass, and to treat history as a
philosophy instead of as a romance. We are limited to
the description of what he has done, not how^ he did it,
and to the detail of results instead of processes. And
yet history in ‘its modern era is rapidly entering this philo-
sophic stage. For many centuries it has been confined to
the romance of individual life. It is now verging toward
the philosophy of existence, the scientific study of human
development. Kings and courtiers have too long dwarfed
the people. But the stature of the people is increasing,
4
THE ARYAN RACE.
and that of rulers and heroes diminishing, while a growing
interest in the story of humanity as a whole is succeeding
that in the lives of individuals. This gives us some war-
rant for venturing to describe the history of a race whose
ancient life we know only as a whole, and of which we
cannot give the name of one of its heroes, the scene of
one of its exploits, or even the region of the earth which
it occupied. Yet this race is so important a one, and its
later history has been so grand and exciting, that the story
of what is known of its primitive life can scarcely fail to
find an interested audience, particularly when we remember
that we are here dealing with our own ancestors, and trac-
ing the pedigree of our own customs and institutions.
In this inquiry it is necessary to begin by considering
the claim of the Aryans to the title of “ race.” What posi-
tion do they hold in the category of human races, and what
were the steps of their derivation and development from
primitive man? We must locate them first as members of
the broad family of mankind before we can fairly enter
into tire study of their record as a separate group. We
have spoken of them somewhat indefinitely as a race,
family, or tribe. Indeed, they cannot justly be honored
with the title of race until we know more fully in what the
race-characteristic consists, and what is their claim to its
possession. In this respect ethnologists have so many
varying ideas that the number and limitations of the
human races are still far from being settled. We can
therefore but briefly detail some of the latest views upon
the subject.
-
.
Kace-divisions, indeed, have been made through two
widely different lines of research. Of these, the first and
most fundamental is that of physical characteristics ; the
TYPES OF MANKIND.
5
second is that of linguistic conditions. The latter, based on
the radical diversities in human languages, doubtless indi-
cates a more recent separation of mankind. To a consider-
able extent it follows the lines of physical variation. It
seldom crosses these lines to any important extent, though
it separates some of the broad physical divisions into minor
races. The Aryan is one of these linguistic races. It is not
a true race in the wider sense, since, as at present consti-
tuted, it includes portions of two physical groups which
have so intimately intermingled that pure specimens of
either are somewhat exceptional, and are found in any
'considerable number only on the opposite border-lands of
these groups.
The primary separation of mankind into races very long
preceded the development of the modern families of lan-
guage, and wras due to strictly physical influences. The
mental lines of division, as indicated by language, are
much more recent. The physical races have been va-
riously classified by ethnologists, one of the latest schemes
beiug that of Professor Huxley, who distinguishes four
principal types of man, — the Mongoloid, the Negroid, the
Australioid, and the Xanthochroic ; to which lie adds a fifth
variety, the Melanochroic.1 It is only with the last two
of these that we are here directly concerned, since it is
these which enter into the composition of the Aryan race.
More recently Professor Flower has given an outline
of a system of human classification which he regards
as most in accordance with the present state of our
knowledge on the subject.2 He considers that there are
three extreme types, — those called by Blumenbach the
1 Journal of the Ethnological Society, ii. 404 (1870).
2 Address before the Anthropological Institute, Jan. 27, 1SS."*.
6
THE ARYAN RACE.
Ethiopian, the Mongolian, and the Caucasian, around
which all existing individuals of the human species can
be ranged, but between which every possible intermediate
form can be found. Of these the Ethiopian is secondarily
divided into the African Negroes, the Hottentots and
Bushmen, the Oceanic Negroes or Melanasians, and the
Negritos as represented by the inhabitants of the Anda-
man and other Pacific islands. The Australians, whom
Huxley takes as the t3Tpe of a separate race, he considers
to be a mixed people, as they combine the Negro type of
face and skeleton, with hair of a different t37pe. His sec-
ond race is the Mongolian, represented in an exaggerated
form by the Eskimo, in its t3Tpical condition by^ most of
the natives of northern and eastern Asia, and in a modified
type by the Mala3Ts. Excluding the Eskimo, the Ameri-
cans form one group, whose closest affinity is with the
Mongolian, 3Tet which has so man3T special features that it
might be viewed as a fourth primaiy division. His third
or Caucasian race includes two sub-races, — the Xantho-
chroic and Melanochroic of IIuxle3T. The seat of this
race is Europe, northern Africa, and southwestern Asia,
its linguistic division being into Aiyans, Semites, and
Hamites.
Several recent writers are inclined to accept a conclusion
closely similar to that of Professor Flower, and to divide
man into three t3?pical races, — the Negro, the Mongolian,
and the Caucasian or Mediterranean; viewing all remain-
ing races as secondary derivatives of these : as, for in-
stance, the American and the Mala37 from the Mongolian;
or as mixtures, as the Australians from the combination of
the Oceanic Mongolians and Negroes. Topinard1 goes so
1 Anthropology, p. 510,
TYPES OF MANKIND.
7
far as to divide man into three distinct species. The first
of these is the Mongolian, distinguished by a brachyceph-
alic, or short skull, by low stature, yellowish skin, broad,
flat countenance, oblique eyes, contracted eyelids, beard-
less face, hair scant}T, coarse, and round in section. The
second is the Caucasian, with moderately dolichocephalic,
or long skull, tall stature, fair, narrow face, projecting on
the median line, hair and beard abundant, light-colored,
soft, and somewhat elliptical in section. His third species
is the Negro, with skull strongly dolichocephalic, complex-
ion black, hair flat and rolled into spirals, face very prog-
nathous, and with several peculiarities of bodily structure
not necessary to name here.
It is not our purpose to express any opinion upon this
theory of specific differences in mankind, except to say
that if such differences exist they are probably limited to
the Negro and the Mongolian stocks. There are good
reasons for removing the Caucasian from this category.
That the Negroes and the Mongolians do differ in sufficient
particulars of structure to constitute a specific difference
in the lower animals, must be admitted.1 Their mental
1 Agassiz notes the following marked differences in physical structure
between the Negroes and the Indians of Brazil, —the latter in all proba-
bility originally of Mongolian race. His conclusions are based on the
comparison of a large number of photographs of the two races. The
Negroes are generally slender, with long.legs and arms, and a compara-
tively short body ; while the Indians have short arms and legs, and long
bodies, which are rather heavy, and square in build. He compares the
former to the slender, active Gibbons ; the latter to the slow, inactive,
stout Orangs. Another striking distinction is the short neck and great
•width of shoulder in the Indian, as compared with the narrow chest and
shoulder of the Negro. This difference exists in females as well as
males. The legs of the Indian are remarkably straight; those of the
Negro are habitually flexed, both at hip and knee. In the Indian the
8
THE ARYAN RACE.
differences are equally marked. But these variations may
possibly have had another origin. The Negro is essen-
tially the man of the South, the developed scion of the
African or the Australasian tropics. The Mongolian is
the man of the North, his native region being the chill
tablelands of northern Asia, so far as the balance of indi-
cations goes. Whether these two races, with their specific
differences, arose as distinct species in these widely sepa-
rated localities, and spread outward from these centres of
dispersion until they met and intimately mingled at their
borders, or whether they indicate some very early division
of a single human species into two sections, and variation
under differing climatic influences, are questions which
science is not as yet prepared to answer. It is unques-
tionable that their well marked and strongly persistent
physical characteristics are the outcome of a very long
period of separate development. If there was a single
primitive type of man, its two main divisions must have
been long exposed to very diverse conditions of climate
and life-habits ; and its separation must have taken place
at a very early era in human existence,—perhaps, as sug-
gested by Professor Wallace,1 at that primitive epoch
when men were as yet too low in mind to combat against
the influences of nature, and were far more plastic to the
agency of natural selection than they have been during
the later epoch of weapons, clothing, and habitation.
If we now come to the consideration of the Caucasian
shoulder-blades are short, and separated by a wide interval ; in the Negro
they are long, with little space between them. There are other differ-
ences of structure, equally marked; but the above will suffice to show
the strong racial distinction. Vide “A Journey in Brazil,” pp.
529-32.
1 Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, p. 319.
TYPES OF MANKIND.
9
race, we have to deal with a series of facts markedly dis-
tinct from those relating to the other two races named.
In the Caucasian we certainly have not a primitive and
homogeneous type of mankind, but a race of varied mix-
ture and of much more recent origin, and therefore neces-
sarily not a distinct species of man, but a derivative from
primitive man.
In support of this view an argument of some cogency
can be offered. The opening of the historical era presents
the three races above indicated in very different relations
to those which now obtain. At the earliest date to which
we can trace them, the Mongolian and the Negro, with
their sub-types and hybrid races, divided the major part
of the earth between them. Hardly a foothold was left
for the Caucasian. Great part of Africa and many of the
Pacific islands were occupied by the Negro race. Others
of these islands, all of America, and nearly all of Asia,
were occupied by peoples of the Mongoloid t}Tpe. As for
Europe, late research has given us some very interesting
information concerning its early inhabitants. There is
reason to believe that it has been successively occupied by
sections of the three principal human races, and that its
general occupancy by Caucasians reaches not very remotely
beyond the historical era.
The skull is the truest index of human races, and the
ancient skulls found by modern man in Europe tell us
much concerning its early ethnological conditions. The
most ancient of these skulls belong to a long-headed,
strongly prognathous race, with characteristics of a lower
type than are to be found in existing man. This, called by
Quatrefages the Canstadt race, includes the famous Nean-
derthal skull, with its brute-like characters. Other skulls,
10
THE ARYAN RACE.
of apparently later date, constitute the so-called Cro-
Magnon race. These are also dolichocephalic and progna-
thous, and approach nearer to the Negro than to any other
of the existing types. It is not impossible that a modi-
fied branch of the Negro race had spread itself over west-
ern Europe at this early period.
Still later appear the skulls of men of quite different
race-characteristics. These range from medium to short
heads, while the accompanying skeletons are of short stat-
ure, and present certain traces of affinity to the modern
Lapps. It is probable that the long-headed and possibly
Negroid earlier race had been driven back by a Mongoloid
migration, which in the Neolithic age became widely dis-
tributed. There are apparently two types, of which the
medium-skulled one may be to some extent a cross be-
tween the long-headed aborigines and the intruding short-
headed race. This “Neolithic” type has probably left a
remnant of its language in the Basrpie dialect, as spoken
by half a million of persons crowded into the Biscayan re-
gion of France and Spain, the relics of a people who once
may have occupied the greater part of Europe. Though
the language of Neolithic man has nearly vanished, his
race-characters still persist; for the skulls and bodies
of the ancient tombs seem reproduced in the physical
characters of many of the present inhabitants of the same
regions. The ancient race has held its own persistently
against the later infusion of Aiyan blood.
Thus in the outgrowth of what we incline to view as
the two original races, the Mongoloid and the Negroid,
the former seems to have been far the more energetic.
It not only occupied the continents of Asia, Europe, and
America, but pushed its way into northern Africa and the
TYPES OF MANKIND.
11
islands of the Pacific, yielding in the line of demarcation
of the primitive races a type of man of intermediate
characteristics. Though Mongolian man is less prolific
than the Negro, his greater restlessness and spirit of enter-
prise seem to have placed him in possession, at a remote
period, of most of the earth outside of Africa and the
Asiatic islands.
In this glance at prehistoric man no clearly defined trace
appears of the Caucasian race, whose area at that era was
certainly very contracted as compared with that of the
Mongolian and the Negro. And yet at the earliest date
to which we can trace them the Caucasians exhibited the
qualities they still possess, — those of superior intellectu-
ality, enterprise, and migratory vigor. When we first gaze
upon the race,— or rather upon its Xanthochroic section,—
it is everywhere spreading and swelling, forcing its way to
the East and the West with resistless energy. Before its
energetic outflow the aborigines vanish or are absorbed.
In the continent of Europe no trace of them is left, with
the exception of the Basques, pushed back into a moun-
tain corner of Spain, and the Finns and Lapps, driven into
the arctic regions of the North. A similar fate has be-
fallen them in southern Asia. During the whole historical
era this migratory spirit has continued active. The sepa-
rate branches of, and the Aryans as a wiiole, have been
persistently seeking to extend their borders. They are
still doing so with all the old energy, driving the w^edge
of invasion deep into the domain of Mongoloid and Ne-
groid life, until the Caucasians of to-day number one
third of all mankind,1 and bid fair, ere many centuries, to
1 About 420,000,000. Two centuries ago their number was not more
than one tenth of the earth’s population.
12
THE ARYAN RACE.
reduce the other races to mere fragments, like the Basques
or the North American Indians of the present day.
From these facts we certainly have some warrant to con-
clude that the Caucasian is not a primitive human race,
but a peculiar and highly endowed derivative of the pre-
ceding races. Otherwise we should not have found it at
the beginning of authentic history almost lost in the sea of
ruder life, but its superior qualities would have told at a far
more remote epoch, the Negro and the Mongolian expan-
sion have been checked long ages ago, and history opened
with the Caucasian as the dominant race of mankind. It
is generally acknowledged that from the primitive types
many sub-races have branched off, differing in mental and
physical characters; as, for instance, the American from
the Mongolian. The Caucasian may possibly be a very
divergent example of these sub-types, or rather, if we
may judge from certain highly significant indications, a
compound of two sub-types derived from the two pre-
ceding races.
Of the two sub-races which make up the Caucasian
stock of mankind, the Xanthochroi, or fair whites, are
now found most typically displayed in the north of
Europe, mainly in Denmark, Scandinavia, and Iceland.
The Melanochroi, or dark whites, have their t}Tpical region
in northern Africa and southwestern Asia. Between
these regions an intimate mixture of the two types exists,
endless intermediate grades being found; though as a
rule the Xanthochroic becomes more declared as we go
north, and the Melanochroic as we go south.
The combined race is described by Feschel1 in the
following terms: The shape of the Caucasian skull is
1 The Races of Man, p. 4S1.
TYPES OF MANKIND.
13
intermediate between the short skull of the Mongolian
and the long skull of the Negro race. Prominence of the
cheek-bones and prognathism, or projection of the lower
jaw, common characters in the other races, are very rare
in the Caucasian, or the Mediterranean race, as he names
it. The skin varies in hue. Fair hair and blue eyes with
a florid complexion are very frequent among the Northern
Europeans. Such was also the case with the Gallic Celts,
as described in ancient history, though it is not so with
the modern French, with whom the darker hue prevails.
The skin is generally darker with the Southern Europeans,
and becomes yellow, reddish, or brown in Africa and
Arabia, while the hair and eyes become dark or black.
The hair of the Mediterraneans is not so long nor so
cylindrical in section as in the Mongolians; it is not so
short nor so elliptical as in the Negroes. It is generally
curly, being intermediate between the other two races in
this respect. The hair is more abundant than in the other
races, and the beard much more so, the Mongolians and
Americans being nearly beardless. The nose is a well-
marked feature, its high bridge and narrow form distin-
guishing it from the broad and flat nose of the Negroes
and Mongolians. The lips are usually thin, and never
present the swollen aspect of the Negro lips. As a whole,
the features of this race are more refined than those of the
other races, and the form is more symmetrically developed.
The Caucasian, indeed, seems as a rule intermediate
between the other two races. The Negro face, seen in
profile, recedes from the chin to the forehead; that of
the Caucasian is vertical. The Mongolian face is vertical
or projecting in profile, but in front view is of a triangular
outline, being broad at base and contracted at the fore-
14
THE ARYAN RACE.
head ; the Caucasian outline is oval. The flat median line
of the Negro and the Mongolian is replaced by a pro-
jecting outline in the Caucasian, mainly due to the eleva-
tion and narrowness of the nose and the lack of expansion
in the cheek-bones.
In these particulars the two sub-races of the Caucasian
somewhat closely agree, their main distinction being in
color, though there is also a marked difference in form.
The Xanthochroic, or blond type, is distinguished by blue
or gray eyes, hair from straw-color to chestnut, and a
rosy or florid complexion, which burns to a brick-red or
becomes freckled under exposure. In form this race is
tall and stout, of square build though sometimes slim, with
rather ponderous limbs, and a squarer skull and coarser ^
features than in the Melanochroic.
The latter race is marked by a skin of brownish or olive
hue, which quickly blackens upon exposure, sometimes
enormously so ; it perhaps inherits a tendency to revert
to the typical Negro complexion. The color of the hair
and eyes is black, and the stature lower than in the
Xanthochroi. The form is very symmetrical in its pro-
portions, the skull round-domed, and the features are more
delicate than those of the blond type. These two types,
as we have said, have become intimately mingled, so that
every shade of gradation exists between them. Yet nu-
merous instances of the typical structure appear, and the
race-characteristics seem very persistent.
The blond race has its purest expression in Iceland,
Scandinavia, and Denmark, and next in Holland, north-
ern Germany, Saxony, Belgium, and the British Islands.
But it crops out throughout the whole range of the Cauca-
sian domain. In the far East, though the brown type is
TYPES OF MAK KIND.
15
generally prevalent, the blond type frequently appears.
It is common among the Persians and Afghans, while the
Siah Posh of Kaffiristan are particularly marked by their
fair complexions, blue eyes, and chestnut hair. It exists
also in northern Africa, and on an Egyptian monument of
the twelfth dynasty there appears the representation of a
man with white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Yet in
this southern region the dark type is the prevalent one,
while it in its turn has forced its way far to the north,
though in diminishing frequency as it approaches the
colder regions.
-
The natural inference from these facts is that the blond
type has its native locality in the North and East, in con-
tiguity with the Mongolian, and the dark type in the South,
in contiguity with the Negro race. The expanding ten-
dency which these types of man have displayed during the
whole historical epoch must have existed since their first
origin, if we may judge from their very intimate com-
mingling, which has been so great that comparatively few
pure representatives of either type remain. No such com-
plete mixture is shown in the Mongolian and Negro races,
except in a narrow border region. This indicates a much
less energetic constitutional migratory spirit in the latter
than in the Caucasian, and is a further argument in proof
of the recent origin of this race ; since if of remote origin,
it could not possibly have been confined to the narrow
region in which we find it at the opening of the historic
period.
What, then, was the origin of the two Caucasian sub-races ?
In response to this question we may propound the viewrs
offered by Mr. J. W. Jackson,1 who advances the theory
1 Aryan and Semite, Anthropological Review, vii. 333.
16
THE ARYAN RACE.
that the Semite (or, as we prefer to consider, all the
Melanochroi) is really a derivative from the Negro race;
and the Aryan (or rather the Xanthochroi) is a derivative
from the Mongolian. He bases this theory on mental
characteristics; but he should have considered also the
physical characters of the races. If we observe the
Melanochroi, or dark whites, it is to find their purest
specimens in the far South, on the immediate northern
limits of the Negro race. And here they present signifi-
cant points of affinity to the Negro type. Many of the
Berbers of the Sahara region approximate to the Negro
in feature, though some tribes are light olive in complex-
ion, with straight noses and thin lips. Of the ancient
Egyptian type we are told that they had “ thick lips, full
and prominent; mouths large, but cheerful and smiling;
complexions dark, ruddy, and coppery; and the whole as-
pect displaying — as one of the most graphic delineators
among modern travellers has observed — the genuine
African character, of which the Negro is the exaggerated
and extreme representation.”1 The Arabs present similar
affinities. Some of the Arab tribes of the Middle Desert
have crisp hair, approaching that of the Negroes in texture.
In bodily and mental character the Southern Arabs of pure
blood approximate to the Negro type,1 2 and in color they
may become of a jet black, as is the case with the Sliegya
Arabs of Africa. On the other hand, in northern and
more elevated regions the complexion of the Arabs is as
fair as that of Europeans.3 Quatrefages looks upon this
1 Denon, Voyage en Egypte.
2 Palgrave, article “Arabia,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth
edition).
3 Prichard, Natural History of Man, p. 150.
TYPES OF MANKIND.
17
race as one which has evolved a single step beyond the
“ arrested ” Negro phase.1
Tribes of mankind closely affiliated with the Melanochroi,
though with a stronger infusion of the Negro element, ex-
tend much farther south in Africa. In addition to the
Melanochroic Abyssinians and Gallas, may be mentioned
the more Negroid Nubas, with black skins, but features
of a type intermediate between the white and the black
races. But the most significant of the mid-African peoples
are the Foulahs, — an energetic and warlike tribe, distinc-
tively different from the Negroes, into whose domains
they are steadily intruding. This people has become much
modified by intercrossing with Negroes and Arabs, but
seems to have been originally of the Melanochroic type.
Dr. Lenz, in his recent work on Timbuktu, says of them
that they are of a distinctly non-Negro type. Pure speci-
mens of the Foulahs differ from the Negroes in almost
every racial characteristic,—in cranial conformation, com-
plexion, texture of hair, figure, proportion of limbs, and in
mental qualities. He was amazed at their striking resem-
blance to Europeans, and describes the pure-blooded
Foulahs as of light complexion, slightly arched nose,
straight forehead, fiery glance, long black hair, shapely
limbs, tall, slim figures, and of great intelligence.
In fact, the Melanochroi present indications, to judge
from their early wide extension, of being a much more
primitive race than the Xanthochroi. They are found
throughout northern Africa, extending to a line drawn con-
siderably south of the Sahara ; widely distributed through-
out southern Asia, from the Semitic regions to India, where
they give the main physical character to the Hindu Aryans ;
1 The Human Species, p. 351.
18
THE ARY AX RACE.
everywhere in southern Europe, where their type greatly
predominates over that of the blonds; and in less pre-
ponderance in central Europe, where they have essentially
modified the original type of the Celtic and Teutonic
Aryans.
If we accept the indications here presented, in connection
with the apparently very limited extension of the blond
type of man in the recent pre-historic period, we are led to
the theory that the Eastern Hemisphere was divided at a
more remote period between three races of mankind, — the
Mongolian in the temperate and frigid zones, the Negro in
the tropics, and the Melanochroi occupying a broad inter-
mediate belt stretching across the whole continent from
the Atlantic to the borders of Farther India.
It is interesting to perceive that this zone occupied by
Melanochroic man is that of demarcation of the primitive
Mongoloid and Negroid races. Here they must have met
and mingled, and here a hybrid derivative of the two races
very probably arose, — an intermediate type of mankind,
with a preponderance of the Negro element, if we may judge
from existing indications. It is particularly in Europe
that we find evidence of this mingling of the long-headed
and short-headed aboriginal races, their resultant being a
type with skulls of medium length,—the Neolithic man of
western Europe. More extended investigation may yield
similar evidence all along the zone of demarcation. IVe
can picture to ourselves an original Negroid population in
this zone, a southward migratory movement of the more
enterprising Mongolians, and a long-continued mingling of
the two races, with a somewhat profound modification of
their physical characteristics, yielding a new type of man,
the Melanochroic, with considerably more of Negro than of
TYPES OF MANKIND.
19
Mongolian blood, yet essentially diverse in character from
both the parental types.
If now we come to consider the origin of the blond type
of man, we find ourselves brought down to nearly historic
times. The widespread extension of this type at the open-
ing of the historic era can be traced back, almost step by
step, to an original central region, probably of small dimen-
sions, though of unknown location. We have evidence from
the Egyptian monuments of what may have been the first
appearance of blond man in that region. Of the type as
found in the north of Africa, in Tunis and Morocco,
among the Berbers of the Sahara, and in the Canary
Islands, Topinard remarks : “ It is derived from a Tama-
hou people who about the year 1500 before our era made
their appearance upon the frontier of Egypt, coming from
the North. . . . The blonds which we meet with in the
Basque territory and near the Straits of Gibraltar in Spain
are probably descendants of theirs.”1 In Europe and
Asia the movements of the blond race took place immedi-
ately before the opening of the historic epoch ; and though
the centre of dispersion is not clearly known, }Tet nearly
every step of migration has been traced. In every region
to which they migrated, with the exception of Scandinavia,
they seem to have mingled freely with the preceding Mela-
nochroic inhabitants, yielding that intimately mixed race
which constitutes the Aryan of to-day. To this fusion we
owe the modern man of southern Asia and Europe, from
the bronzed Brahman of the East to the round-headed and
dark-featured class among the Celts of the West. Only in
the extreme North did the Xanthochroic type sustain itself
in any purity, and only in Arabia and Africa did the
1 Anthropology, p. 4H2.
20
THE ARYAN RACE.
Melanochroic type remain preponderant. In all the region
between, every possible intermediate gradation of the two
t}Tpes exists, though the dark type gradually decreases
as we move northward, and the blond type as we move
southward.
If we endeavor to seek the derivation of the blond type
of man the indications are very obscure. This type-differs
markedly from the Mongolian ; and yet we are not without
intermediate links of connection, or traces of a tendency in
the Mongolian to assume the Xanthochroic characters. We
are told by Chinese historians of certain mysterious tribes
in central Asia who were tall of stature and had green eyes
and red hair. Matuanlin, the historian, described one such
people as inhabiting western Mongolia at the opening of the
Christian era. A similar tribe existed beyond the Altai'
Mountains. Other tribes are mentioned, down to the twelfth
century, as tall, with red hair and green eyes, and of fair
complexion.
Some writers are inclined to consider these as members
of the Turkish Mongolians, who are known to have inhab-
ited the region mentioned. The physical appearance of the
modern Turks, indeed, strongly resembles the Aryan type
of man. The Turks of the Ottoman and Persian empires
are completely Europeanized in feature and structure.
This is by some ascribed to persistent intermarriage with
Circassian slaves ; yet such a theory applies only to the rich
and powerful, while the peasantry are equally European-
ized. The great mass of the lower population have
always strictly intermarried, difference of religion and
manners keeping them separate from the Greeks and Per-
sians. The Tadjiks of Persia, the true Aryans, are of a
sect of Mohammedanism hostile to that professed by the
TYPES OF MANKIND.
21
Turks, and these two classes have kept rigidly separate.
The Aryan characteristics of the civilized Turks is there-
fore not so readily explainable.
Of the Turcomans Vambéry says that they alone of all
Mongolians do not possess high cheek-bones, while the
blond color is predominant among them. Yet the Turkish
hordes of the northern steppes are strongly Mongolian in
physical character, though occasionally blue and gray eyes
are observed among the Kirghiz. Still farther eastward
similar indications appear. Topinard quotes as follows:
“We saw Mantschu Tartars,” says Barrow, “ who accom-
panied Macartney’s embassy to Pekin, men as well as
women, who were extremely fair and of florid complexion;
some of the men had light blue eyes, a straight, aquiline
nose, brown hair, and a large and bushy beard.”1 All
this, however, might be due to mixture with the blond
race, even though we have no evidence of conditions
favorable to such a mixture. Yet such could not well be
the case in America, where similar variations are common.
King tells us that “ the oval face associated with the Ro-
man nose” is by no means rare among the Eskimos,
while the complexion is sometimes fair, sometimes dark.
Among the American tribes the nose is occasionally of the
Mongolian type, but is often large, prominent, bridged, and
even aquiline, while the stature is tall, and the skull lias a
tendency to the elongated shape. Several tribes, both of
North and South America, present a close approximation
to the European type. This is strikingly the case with
the Mandans, the so-called White Indians of the West, as
described by Catlin. The above facts seem to indicate a
ready variability in the Mongolian race, under the influence
1 Anthropology, p. 452.
22
THE ARYAN RACE.
of diversity of climate and condition, since these widespread
modifications towards the European type can scarcely be
ascribed to mixture with a race as limited in numbers as
the Xanthochroi appear to have been at the opening of
the historic era.
There is yet, however, one branch of the linguistic
Mongolians to be considered, — the Finnish. And here
we find a strongly marked approximation towards the
Xanthochroic race, far too general to be ascribed to in-
termarriage. The Finns are to some degree intermediate
between the blond and the Mongolian types, though much
nearer the former. They are marked by long hair, usually
reddish or yellowish, or of a flaxen hue, and more rarely
chestnut. The European Finlanders have red hair, with a
moderately full beard, generally red. The eyebrows are
thick, the eyes sunken, and of a blue, greenish gray, or
chestnut hue. The complexion is fair, and usually freckled.
The nose is straight, with small nostrils ; the cheek-bones
are prominent, owing to the thinness of the face ; the lips
small. These characteristics clearly separate the Finns
from all the surrounding types, and bring them much closer
to the European than to the Mongolian race. The north-
ern Russians in particular are of very similar physical char-
acter. Very probably the green-eyed and red-haired race
spoken of by the Chinese Tvere Finnish tribes, though blue
is more common than green in the eyes of modern Finns.
We may also say here that the Finns approach the Aiyans
in the possession of a mythology and of a highly developed
poetry, — an evidence of mental power which is not found
in pure Mongolians of a similar state of civilization.
Thus though no direct clew to the origin of the Xantho-
chroic type of man exists, there are strong indications
TYPES OF MANKIND.
23
that it was a derivative from the Mongolian, and that
it arose at a comparatively recent date. We have shown
that a tendency exists among the Mongolians of northern
Asia and America to deviate towards the Xanthochroic
character. In the case of the Finns this deviation has
yielded a strongly marked race, nearly approaching the
Xanthochroi both physically and mentally. It is of in-
terest, in this connection, to remark that the Finnish
race is native to a locality bordering upon that which the
latest archaeologists consider the original home of the Ary-
ans, and that it differs from the neighboring Russians
mainly in language, and veiy little in ph}rsical character. It
may be offered as a conjectural hypothesis that the prim-
itive Xantho.chroi were a derivative from the Finns at an
era before the languages of either had attained much de-
velopment, the further physical variation which took place
being probably due to climatic influences, and possibly to
residence of the Xanthochroi in a mountainous region.1
The mental characteristics of the several human races
lead us to similar conclusions. In the first place it may be
remarked that all the savage tribes of the earth belong to
the Negro or the Mongolian race. No Negro civilization
has ever appeared. No Mongolian one has ever greatly
developed. On the other hand, the Caucasian is pre-emi-
1 Tt seems probable that, the Lapps, the remaining European Mon-
golians, have close race-affinities with the Finns. Professor A. H. Keene
has recently examined a company of seven Lapps, in London, and de-
cides that in several respects they have deviated from their fundamental
Mongolian type, and have assimilated, especially in the color of the hair
and eyes, in the complexion, and in the shape of the nose, to the sur-
rounding Norse population. He attributes this assimilation to like cli-
matic influences rather than to intermixture, of which there is no direct
evidence. The family belonged to the mountain nomadic tribes, of purest
descent and of least intercourse with Europeans.
24
THE ARYAN RACE.
nently the man of civilization. No traveller or historian
records a savage tribe of Caucasian stock. This race
everywhere enters history in a state of advanced bar-
barism or of rapidly advancing civilization.
But the Caucasian development is not the work of either
of the sub-races, but of their combined resultant. Men-
tally, each of the pure types too closely approaches its
assumed ancestral race to display vigorous intellectual
powers. The pure Melanochroi tend towards the Negro
type of intellectuality; the pure Xauthochroi approximate
to the Mongolian. The Negro race, as described by De
Gobiueau,1 is marked b}^ a low grade of intellectuality,
combined with a strongly emotional tendency. It is quick
in acquisition at first, but soon stops, and grows dull in-
tellectually. Emotionally the Negro is capable of violent
passions and strong attachments. He has a childish in-
stability of humor, intense but not enduring feelings,
poignant but transitory grief. lie is seldom vindictive,
his anger being violent but quickly appeased, his sensi-
bilities ardent but speedily subsiding. His amatory feel-
ings are strong, and his sensuality highly developed. In
these particulars he is akin to the Melanochroi of Arabia
and the West, in whom we find a sensual temperament, fierce
passions, intense emotions, and a mentality that requires
excitement more than reason for its exercise, and tends to
the fanciful far more strongly than to the logical.
If now we compare the yTellow race with the black, we
find them strongly opposite in mental characteristics. In
muscular vigor and intensity of feelings the t}rpical Mon-
golians are greatly inferior to the blacks. They are supple
and agile, but not strong. Their sensuality is less violent
1 Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races, p. 445.
TYPES OF MANKIND.
25
than that of the blacks, but less quickly appeased. They
are much less impulsive, aud rather obstinate than violent
in will-power. Their anger is vindictive, but not clamorous.
They are seldom prone to extremes, and while easily under-
standing what is not very profound and sublime, their lack
of emotional and imaginative energy prevents their attain-
ing an ardent faith or an exalted religious philosophy.
They love quiet and order, and keenly appreciate the useful
and practical. They are, indeed, a practical people in the
narrowest sense of the word. Their lack of imagination
renders them uninventive, but they easily understand and
adopt whatever is of practical utility.1 This description
applies mainly to the Asiatic Mongolians, and is shown
in the whole conditions of the Chinese civilization. It
cannot be extended to include the Americans, who have
a very marked development of the faculty of imagination.
It applies in some measure, however, to the blond race of
northern Europe, in whom we find a strong mental an-
tithesis to the ardent nations of the South. The pure
blonds replace the nervous temperament of the Melano-
chroi with a lymphatic temperament. They lack vivacity,
but are more reflective. They are controlled by reason
rather than by desire. Conclusions are not reached im-
pulsively, but are thought out, and are strongly held
when once arrived at. They are not of quick passion, are
slowly roused, but earnest and persevering, and are brave
without requiring the stimulus of enthusiasm. They are
sincere and simple-minded, but addicted to gluttony and
drunkenness, — faults to which the Melanochroi are much
less addicted. In these respects the blond white presents
the same affinity to the Mongolians as the dark white does
1 Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races, A. de Gobineau, p. 445.
26
-
THE ARYAN RACE.
to the Negroes, and they seem respectively the highest
expression of these two races.
But in the mentality of the two primary races we have
the germinal conditions of the highest phases of intellectual
development. The emotional characteristics of the Negro
are the germinal stage of the imaginative faculty; the
practical mentality of the Mongolian is the germinal con-
dition of the reasoning powers. In Scandinavia we find
a practical people, yet one not given to abstract thought.
In Arabia and northern Africa we find a highly emotional
people, }Tet one not noted for valuable imaginative produc-
tions. For the higher unfoldment of these mental faculties
a further step was needed, — that close fusion of the two
sub-races which has so widely taken place. The mixed race
of Europe presents us with the highest type of man. The
wild flights of Southern fancy have been tamed by the cool
decisions of practical sense, until we find, as the lineal
successor of the Oriental extravagance, the artistically
imaginative productions of the people of Greece. The
practical tendency of the Northern mind has been inspired
by imagination until it has yielded the exalted products of
Teutonic reason.
Despite the long and close intermingling of these sub-
races, the mental character of each crops out frequently in
strong isolation, now reason, now imagination, becoming
markedly predominant in an individual or a people. The
highest display of the reasoning faculty in modern Europe
is in the region of the Teutonic race, in which the infusion of
Xanthochroic blood is in excess. The imaginative faculty
has reached its highest development in the South, where
Melanochroic blood is in excess. This is markedly dis-
played in the literature of Greece, and yet more so in
TYPES OF MANKIND.
27
India, where the flights of imagination have left reason
far in the rear. In mid-Europe of to-day these two facul-
ties exist in some degree of balance : though in France and
the South the preponderance of imagination is shown in the
artistic and picturesque tendency of thought, wrhile in Ger-
many a like preponderance of the logical faculty appears;
and iu England, the central meeting-place of the two races,
these two faculties seem more evenly combined than else-
where upon the earth. It is to this mingling of South and
North, of fair and dark, of judgment and emotion, of im-
agination and reason, that we owe the Aryan race, the
apex of human development, and the culminating point
in the long-continued evolution of man.
The comparative mental characteristics of the three typi-
cal human races are briefly enumerated by De Gobineau in
the following terms: The white race has great physical
vigor, capacity, and endurance. It has an intensity of will
and desire which is controlled by intellectuality. Great
things are undertaken readily, but not blindly. It mani-
fests a strong utilitarianism, united with a powerful imagi-
nation, which elevates, ennobles, and idealizes its practical
ideas. The Negro can only imitate, the Chinese only util-
ize, the work of the white; but the latter is abundantly
capable of producing new works. He has as keen a sense
of order as the yellow man, not from a love of repose,
however, but from the desire to protect and preserve his
acquisitions. He has a love of liberty far more intense
than exists in the black and yellow races, and clings
to life more earnestly. His high sense of honor is a
faculty unknown to the other races, and springs from
an exalted sentiment of which they show no indications.
His sensations are less intense than in either black
28
THE ARYAN RACE.
or yellow, but bis mentality is far more developed and
energetic.
Our hypothetical line of human physical development
may be combined with one of mental development in a
brief synopsis of the progress of human mentality. Very
far back in time it is possible that a single race of man
occupied the earth, brute-like both in body and mind, if
we may judge from the most ancient traces of mankind
yet discovered. At a later epoch two strongly marked
races made their appearance, perhaps as derivatives from
the single primeval race. Or, in the opinion of some,
these two races were primitive, and constituted two origi-
nal species of man. They differed essentially both physi-
cally and mentally. The Negro race was marked by a
strong emotional tendency, in consonance with its tropical
climate ; the Mongolian by an equally strong phlegmatic
and practical mentality, in consonance with its frigid cli-
mate. At a much later date these races gave rise to two
more highly developed types of man,—the Melanochroi,
in which the Negro emotion had unfolded into imagination,
and the Xanthochroi, in which the Mongolian practicality
had developed into logic. Finally, an intonate mixture of
these two sub-races yielded the modern dominant t}Tpe of
man, the Aryan, ill whom logic and imagination have be-
come combined into reason and art, and the special, one-
sided mental development of earlier man has become a
generalized, intermediate condition of mentality which can
be most fairly characterized by the title of intellectuality.
Thus the Aryan stands as the type of intellectual man, the
central outcome of the races, in which the special condi-
tions of dark and light, North and South, emotional and
practical, have mingled and combined into the highest and
noblest states of mind and body.
TYPES OF MANKIND.
29
If now we come to consider the lines of race as indicated
by language, they will be found to follow to some extent
those above given, though they separate mankind into
several minor racial divisions. The considerable diversity
in physical character between the Americans and the Asi-
atics, for instance, indicating, as it does, an early separa-
tion, is in conformity with the indications of language,
since each continent has its strongly marked linguistic
type. Linguistically the Caucasians are divided into three
sub-types,—the Aryans, the Semites, and the Hamites.
Between the first two of these the distinction in language
is very decided. Between the Semites and the Ilamites it
is much less declared, and their, types of language seem
to have grown up in close contiguity. Significantly, these
latter types of language are spoken by peoples of Melano-
chroic blood. But no Xanthochroic people has ever been
found speaking any but an Aryan tongue.
II.
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
IN seeking to trace the original home of the Aryans we
are concerned mainly with the Xanthochroic, or blond,
type of the race. The Melanochroic, or dark, type was
widely spread, in the later prehistoric era, throughout the
Mediterranean and the southern Asiatic region. But the
blonds were in all probability far more limited in local-
ity, and their place of residence remains one of the unsolved
problems of science, despite the persistent efforts which
have been made to discover it. Yet these blonds or
“fair whites” were the true Aryans, the people with
whom the type of language known as Aryan originated.
The languages of the “ dark whites ” belong to a very dis-
tinct family of speech, which is still spoken by most of the
typical representatives of the race, though Aryan tongues
are generally spoken by the tribes and peoples arising
from a mingling of the two races. It is therefore the
original home of the Xanthochroi — the blue-eyed and
fair-haired ancestors of the modern Aryans — that we
shall here endeavor to trace.
The effort to solve this problem has mainly been based
upon considerations of comparative philology. It has
been a fascinating pursuit to its devotees. The speech
of the original Aryans was wholly unknown ; yet frag-
ments of it lay buried in the depths of modern language,
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
31
and these have been assiduously wrought out and pieced
together, until, like an edifice built of disjointed materials,
they yield a complete and coherent image to our minds.
Word by word the language of the ancient Aryans has
been exhumed. But a word represents a thing, a relation,
or an action, and points to some possession or activity of
the people who used it; and the words of a language
embody the whole industrial, social, and political life of
a nation, down to its minutest detail. Unfortunately we
do not know the language of the ancient Aryans in any
such complete sense as this, nor are we quite sure what
meanings they attached to their words. Y"et their study
has given us some very interesting glimpses into the lives
of a vanished people, and enabled us, to some extent, to
bring them back again to the surface of the earth.
The discovery that a close affinity exists among the lan-
guages of Europe is a result of very recent research. The
resemblance between Greek and Latin, indeed, has long
been known, and the common descent of the Romanic lan-
guages,— the French, Spanish, and Italian, — was too evi-
dent to be lost sight of. But that the remaining languages
of Europe were first-cousins of these, was not perceptible
until philology had become a science. The divergences,
though of the same character, were much wider than those
between the Romanic languages, and needed a critical
study before the resemblance could be made apparent.
Ere this work had made any important progress another
and very distant language was brought into the same fam-
ily. The English in India had become acquainted with the
Sanscrit, — the noble and venerable language of the Vedic
literature of the Hindus. To their surprise and delight, they
discovered that this interesting language possessed close
32
THE ARYAN RACE.
links of affinity, both in words and in structure, with the
European family of speech. This was first pointed out by
Sir William Jones about 1790, who declared that the three
languages, the Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit, had sprung
from “ some common source, which perhaps no longer
exists.” He was also inclined to attribute the Persian to
a similar source, and hinted at the possibility of the Celtic
and the Gothic being members of the same group.
This earliest conception of an Indo-European family of
languages was taken up and extended some twenty years
afterwards by Frederick Schlegel, who in 1808 main-
tained the theory that the languages of India, Persia,
Greece, Italy, and Germany were connected by common
descent from an extinct language, just as the modern
Romanic tongues were descended from the Latin. For
this vanished dialect he proposed the name Indo-Germanic.
The truth of this theory was first demonstrated by Bopp,
in his “ Comparative Grammar,” published from 1833 to
1852. He not only proved clearly the close affinity in
grammatical structure between the languages above named,
but also added the Zend, Armenian, Slavonic, and Lithu-
anian to the group. The Celtic dialects were included
about the same time ; and the relationship of all the mem-
bers of the great family of Aryan speech was thus made
evident. For this group the name “ Indo-European” was
proposed, — a name which is still used by many philolo-
gists. The term “ Aryan ” has more recentty come into
favor, mainly through the influence of Max Müller. This
title really applies only to the Persians and the Hindus,
being that by which they knew themselves before their sepa-
ration ; yet its shortness and ease of handling is giving it
ascendency over the complex compound titles as a name for
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
33
the whole widely extended family. Systematic philologists
have entered into long arguments to prove that the word
“Aryan” has no right to be applied to all Indo-European
peoples. No one disputes the validity of these arguments,
and yet the proscribed word has come generally into use.
It is short and convenient; and this is of tenfold more im-
portance to ordinary speakers than its etymology. To make
a close research into the origin of words is one of the tasks
of philology ; but this does not carry with it the necessity
of replacing accepted and convenient terms by more correct
but cumbrous synonyms. In all languages there are thou-
sands of words whose origin is quite lost in their applica-
tion ; philologists are aware of their original signification,
and nothing further is required.
The community of origin of the peoples above named
had been suspected from other lines of study long before
this linguistic demonstration was completed. Ethnologists
and mythologists had lent aid to the demonstration. A
connection between their religious ideas had become evi-
dent, and the similarity of their race-characteristics had
been observed. Dr. Pritchard suggested their affinity,
from a study of their skulls, years before it was proved
from a study of their languages. But the results of these
earlier investigations were only partially accepted, and the
work of the philologists was needed to round out the circle
of proof. This evidence from philology was no light task.
The separation of the Aryans into distinct branches had
taken place so long ago, aud the language of each branch
had so diverged from those of the others, that it was not
easy clearly to prove their relationship. But science is
patient and persistent; it has long sight and clear vision.
One by one the difficulties vanished, and the truth was made
3
34
THE ARYAN RACE.
apparent. One of the most- striking forms of linguistic
divergence was that pointed out by Jacob Grimm and met
by the celebrated “ Grimm’s law.” He showed clearly
that each branch of the Aryan family had peculiar tenden-
cies of speech, resulting in certain variations of vowels
and consonants, which were constant for the same people.
Whether from some change in the vocal organs that ren-
dered one letter more easily pronounced than another, or
from some unknown cause, each nation developed its own
peculiar variations from the original Aiyan sounds, so that
a single primitive word often assumed forms quite unlike
in sound, and seemingly incompatible in form. Thus the
consonant sound that became v in one branch of the
Aryans became b in another. S with this people became
th with that. Here the vowel was aspirated, and there the
initial h was suppressed. Several such methods of change
might be named, each dialect branching off in its own
special direction, the German following one line, the Latin
another, etc. It is the discovery of the system of vocal
change prevailing with each people that constitutes Grimm’s
law, and that enables us to prove the identity of words
which at first sight seem to have nothing in common. As
one illustration of this we may quote Max Miiller’s identifi-
cation of the English word Nelly with the Saramd of the
Vedas. The s in Sanscrit often becomes h in Greek, and
the liquid r as often becomes l. Thus Sanscrit Saramd
became Greek Hcilama. This, by an ordinary Greek
modification, became contracted to Halan. But the San-
scrit a is often changed to e in Greek, and .by such a
change Halan became Helen. The further steps of change
were easy. Helen in English has become Ellen by the loss
of the aspirate, and Ellen has become transformed into
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
35
Nelly as a familiar name. Yet between these two words
of the same origin there is not a single letter in common.
Philologists do not often have to handle such intricate
tasks as this ; yet their labors have been by no means tri-
fling, and the above will serve as an extreme instance of
the changes with which they have had to deal.1
It will suffice here to say that this line of inquiry
has been carried to the point of absolute demonstration.
There is no more doubt entertained to-day by scientists
of the original community of the languages of the peoples
named than there is of the existence of the earth. The
proof does not rest upon a possibly chance resemblance of
?words, but deals with the very nerves and sinews of speech,
— that rigidly persistent grammatical structure which sur-
vives the most radical changes in the forms of words.
These separate peoples, as Whitney remarks, all count
with the same numerals, call individuals by the same pro-
nouns, address parents and relatives by the same titles,
decline nouns by the same system, compare adjectives
alike, conjugate verbs alike, and form derivatives in the
same method. The words in most ordinary use are similar
in them all. The terms for God, house, father, mother,
son, and daughter, for dog, cow, heart, tears, and tree, are
of the kind that would naturally persist. No chance
could produce abundant conformities of this close cliarac-
1 We may give, as an illustration of the verbal community of the Aryan
languages, the forms taken by one or two words in the several tongues.
Thus the word “house” is in Sanscrit, dama or dam.; in Zend, demand ;
in Greek, domos; in Latin, domus; in Irish, dahvi; in Slavonic, domu;
English derivative, domestic. In like manner, “boat” in Sanscrit is
naic or nauka ; in Persian, naiv or nawah ; in Greek, naus; in Latin,
navis; in old Irish, not or nai; in old German, nnica or nawi; in
Polish, nawa: English derivative, nautical.
36
THE ARYAN RACE.
ter between a whole series of languages ; and the general
existence of such conformities absolutely demonstrates the
common origin of the Aryan tongues.
But a demonstration of the common origin of languages
leads to that of the common origin of the peoples who
speak them. If there was one original Aiyan language,
there was one original Aryan people. It does not follow,
however, that the modern speakers of Aryan tongues are
all descendants of this people. Oppert, Ilovelacque, and
other able philologists claim that the correspondence of
Aryan languages does not prove a common descent, but
is the result of the propagation of a language from a
single centre through heterogeneous populations, as the
Romans and Arabs spread Latin and Arabic over regions
inhabited by other races. This theory, as originally
advanced by M. Oppert, is vigorously contested by
Professor Whitney. lie cannot imagine that any cir-
cumstances existed in the early barbaric period similar
to those of the Roman and Arabian empires. In his
view, no aboriginal language has ever been entirely dis-
pelled without a complete incorporation of the people;
and this has never taken place except in the Roman
empire. Nothing of the kind appears in the conquests
of the Persians, Germans, Mongols, or even of the
Greeks, and certainly could not arise in a much less de-
veloped people. The complete political and social fusion
of the conquered with the conquering people of the Roman
empire has never been paralleled in history, and existed
only in those regions that were bound to Rome for many
centuries. The Arabic parallel is a very imperfect one ; it
represents an infusion of the Arabic rather than an aboli-
tion of the native languages. Barbarians do not conquer
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
-
in this complete way; they destroy or enslave, or their
conquests end, after a limited period, in a revolt of the
conquered tribe. Race-mingling may take place, but
hardly an acceptance of the language of a conquering
tribe by unamalgamated peoples. This argument of Pro-
fessor Whitney is not, however, in very strict agreement
with what race-indications tell us concerning the Aryan
peoples. There can scarcely be a doubt that, in some
instances, the vigor of the Aryans sufficed to impose
their language on more numerous aboriginal peoples, with
whom they became thoroughly mingled. Such, for in-
stance, is the case with the Celts, the Slavonians, and
the Hindus. There is much reason to believe that in all
these the original Aryan conquerors mingled their blood
with that of a considerably more numerous conquered
people. Yet the Aryan language has held its own with
very little modification, while the aboriginal speech has
vanished. Certainly the vigor, enterprise, and persistent
spirit of the Aryan migrants must have exerted a strong
influence upon the more yielding aborigines, and we cannot
be surprised if the latter often lost their language with
their nationality.
We have sufficiently considered in the preceding section
the question of the mingling of the “fair whites” and
“dark whites” of Europe, and endeavored to show the
probability that the development of this type of mankind,
with its distinctive family of language, took place in a
region distinct from that of the typical Melanochroic
people. Where was this region? On what area of the
earth’s surface was it that the Aryan-speaking people grew
into social, political, and linguistic coherence, and devel-
oped that budding civilization and migratory energy which
38
THE ARYAN RACE.
were, at a later period, to send them forth to conquer the
world ? This is a question which has caused deep heart-
burnings among philologists, which is yet far from settle-
ment, and which may perhaps never be fully solved. Yet
the early and hasty conclusions have been succeeded by
better based and more consistent theories; and it is possi-
ble that the “home of the Aryans” may yet be deter-
mined with some satisfactory degree of approximation.
The present state of this much-vexed question we shall
briefly endeavor to set forth.
In the study of Aryan antiquity the languages of Europe
present us only with words. No historical details or tradi-
tions exist to show an early migration from some remote
locality. But in the eastern branch of the Aryan family
there is abundant evidence of a migration to India and
Persia. Literatures, reaching back beyond the date of
this migration, exist, comprising the Yedic hymns of the
Hindus, and the religious works of the Zoroastrian sect, in
which some historical and geographical details are pre-
served. These indicate the region of ancient Arya, the
common home of the Hindus and Persians while they yet
formed a single people, or of all the Aryans, as was long
maintained.
The theory of an eastern home of the Aryans was first
advanced by J. G. Rhodes in 1820. Thirty years ago
this home of the common Aryan tongue was supposed to
be, in the words of Pictet,1 the u vast plateau of Iran, that
immense quadrilateral stretching from the Indus to the
Tigris and Euphrates, from the Oxus and Jaxartes to the
Persian Gulf.” But this area was soon found to be too
extensive, and attempts were made to reduce it within
1 Les Origines Indo-Européennes, oil les Aiyas Primitifs, p. 35.
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
39
more probable limits. The traditions of the A vesta
seemed to point to the region of Bactria as the place of
common residence of Hindus and Persians while they still
formed one people. At that period, too, much was said
about the plateau of Pamir, the 44 roof of the world,” as
the birthplace of the civilized races, though it is now
clearly perceived that this inaccessible and inhospitable
highland is utterly uusuited for human residence. In fact,
the Avestan traditions were plainly stretched too far.
They indeed contained reminiscences of an older Iranian
land, but gave no warrant for the view that this land was
the cradle of the whole Aryan race. Philology was next
appealed to, and the claim made that the language which
had most faithfully preserved the ancient Aryan type must
have been the one that had migrated the least. This prim-
itive condition was found in the Sanscrit and the Zend,
while the Celtic, which had made its way farthest West,
had apparently suffered the greatest transformation.
To the above conclusions, however, several objections
may be made. In the first place, the fact that the early
Persian and Hindu literatures indicate a migration, while
no distinct tradition of the kind exists in the literatures of
early Europe, proves, if it proves anything, that the east-
ern Aryans were the only migrating members of the race.
And their comparatively small numbers and limited area in
their early daj^s is an evidence in the same direction. It
is far more probable that the migration of a tribe from the
West to the far East took place, than that the bulk of the
race moved from the East to the far West, leaving a single
tribe behind. And that these eastern Aryans were immi-
grants who forced- themselves among hostile strangers, is
abundantly indicated in their literature. It is a literature
40
THE ARYAN RACE.
of battle, of deadly fray, of unyielding hostility. The
Vedas are the stirring hymns of a people surrounded by
strangers alien in race and religion, with whom there can
be no peace, and wdiose destruction is a duty to God and
man. They breathe the tone of an invading race full of
vigor and bent on conquest. The Hindus seem to have
been then, as they are to-day, plunged into the heart of
an alien population. The Eastern Aryans have expanded
much since those early days, but they are still everywhere
surrounded by Mongolian tribes. India is still largely in-
habited by members of the Mongolian race and by tribes
of other race-affinity, while its pure Aryans are compara-
tively few. This relation obtains also to some degree in
Persia and the other Asiatic Aryan districts. The vital
Aryan stock has held its own, but it has had to contend
with an alien multitude, and a great degree of mixture of
races has necessarily taken place.
The argument from philology seems no more cogent.
In the Vedas and the Avestas we have preserved to us
relics of an early stage of Aryan speech which no longer
exists as a living language in Asia, and has no counterpart
in the languages of Europe. Had we remains of the latter
from a period of equal antiquity, they might prove equally
primitive. And that the Celtic has undergone the extreme
transformation assumed, is questioned by recent philolo-
gists. In fact, the great probability is that the Aryans
before their dispersion occupied a somewhat wide locality,
into which they had gradually spread from their original
contracted domain. As a consequence, their common speech
must have undergone many changes and corruptions among
the various tribes during the ante-migration period. Bopp
found signs of many such derangements and disturbances
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
41
in the organism of the original Aryan speech, seeming to
show that they had dwelt in their early home for a long
period after the primary development of their linguistic
method. As they spread, dialectical changes necessarily
increased, and quite likely the peculiar dialect of each
branch of the race had become partly formed before the
era of dispersion. Thus the argument from special primi-
tiveness of any of the surviving modes of speech can
scarcely be maintained. We know far too little of the
diversities of speech in ancient Arya and of the early
form of the languages of modern Europe to be able to
come to any definite decision on this controverted point.
In fact the theory that the original Aryan home was in
Bactria is no longer held except by the older philologists.
The arguments upon which it was based have proved
insufficient to sustain it, and no new ones have been ad-
vanced. Another line of argument, to which little attention
was formerly paid, has led several recent writers to place
in Europe the ancient Aryan home. It was suggested,
early in the century, that the Slavonic was a primitive
European population. More recently it has been claimed
that Europe was the original seat of all the Aryans. This
theory is maintained by II. Schulz, D’Halloy, Latham,
Benfey, and others of the more recent writers, and is
rapidly becoming the prevailing view. It trusts for its
proof mainly to linguistic arguments.
Every word which is now used by all the Aryan peoples
is considered to be a direct descendant from the antique
speech of the race, and to indicate some ancient knowledge
or possession of the Aryans. A study of these words
• gives us much interesting information as to the con-
ditions of the original Aryan home. For instance, there
42
THE ARYAN RACE.
is no common word for camel. The word in use has been
borrowed from the Semitic languages. This seems decisive
against Bactria, where the camel is an ordinary animal, and
must have received a name of Ar}Tan origin had the Ar}Tan
languages been formed in that region. In like manner no
name for the lion or the tiger is common to the Aryan lan-
guages, and the inference is that the ancient Aiyans
were ignorant of these animals. To this it is objected that
very many words must have been lost, and that these may
have dropped out and been replaced by other terms. Yet
such a conclusion is not based on probability. Many words
far less likely to persist have been retained, and it cannot
be reasonably maintained that the names of these terrible
and destructive wild beasts would have been utterly for-
gotten, if once known. Yet if there were no lions or tigers
in the primitive Aryan home we must seek this home in
Europe, since these animals are found throughout southern
Asia.
In this connection we may quote Peschel’s views as to
the original home of the Aryans, which are based on some-
what narrow grounds, it is true, yet have strong arguments
in their favor in addition to those which he gives. “ It
lay eastward of Nestus, now Karasu, in Macedonia, which
in the time of Xerxes was the limit of range of the Euro-
pean lion. It was still farther north than Chuzistan, Irak
Arabi, and even than Assyria, where lions are still to be
met with. It cannot have included the highlands of west
Iran and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, for tigers
still wander in search of prey as far as these districts.
Hence, from all the facts here cited, every geographer will
agree that the Indo-Europeans occupied both slopes of the *
Caucasus, as well as the remarkable gorge of Dariel, and
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
43
were in the habit of visiting either the Euxine or the Cas-
pian Sea, or perhaps both. ... It is usually objected to this
argument that in the course of their migrations the Aryan
families abandoned the territory of the lion and the tiger,
and with the animals forgot their names also. But this
requires stronger evidence, for the Maori have preserved
the names for the domestic pig and the cocoanut, although
neither existed in New Zealand. Had the ancient Aryans
seen or fought against such magnificent animals in their
own country, their names would certainly have been re-
tained, even though with an altered significance.” 1
Other writers are inclined to place the Aryan home in
the plains of southern Russia, and still others on the
shores of the Baltic or in Scandinavia. In evidence of
these hypotheses they present the following facts: The
Aryans occupied a cold region. Of the seasons they have
names only for winter, spring, and summer. Autumn was
not recognized as a separate season. But the best series
of common names for climatic phenomena are those belong-
ing to winter. Cold and snow were well known. It was
a freezing and shivering home in which our ancestors
dwelt. Their dress consisted of tunic, coat, collar, and
sandals. These were formed of wool or leather. Abun-
dant provision was needed against the wintry chill. Among
their wild animals were the bear and the wolf, among their
common trees the lurch, — all natives of the European
temperate zone. They seem to have been unacquainted
with the ass and the cat, — ancient domesticated animals
of Africa. This indicates that they were too far removed
from Egypt to have any intercourse with this very ancient
civilization.
1 The Races of Mail, by Oscar Peschel, p. 507.
44
THE ARYAN RACE.
That they were acquainted with some large inland body of
water, is admitted. They had boats, which they moved by
oars. They had names for salt, and for crabs and mussels ;
but the oyster was unknown to their language, and they
knew nothing of the ocean. The salt lake on which they
made their maritime excursions is supposed by the Asiatic
advocates to have been the Caspian. Those who advocate
the Caucasian region, or the plains of southern Russia,
suppose it to have been the Caspian or the Black Sea, or
both. Those who place them in northern Europe point
to the Baltic as their sea.1
Other evidences that Europe was the original Aryan
home may be drawn from their historical distribution. At
the earliest dawn of history they were found in possession
of all Europe, except the frozen regions of Finland and
Lapland in the extreme north. All Europe is named with
their names, except where the geographical titles of the
Basques persist. There is nothing to indicate that they
are intruders, as in the case of the eastern Aryans. All
tradition makes them natives of the regions where found.
When first seen in history they are moving to the east
and the south, not to the west.
As to the extreme migratory theory of Aryan dispersion,
it can hardly be sustained. There is no evidence in its
favor in the history of human migrations. The only tribes
in the history of mankind which have completely released
their hold of their earl}T homes, and poured out en masse
in search of a new home, have been pastoral peoples, with
1 Late advocates of this theory are Professor Penka, who finds the
ancient Aryan home in Scandinavia, and Professor Schrader, who locates
them in northeastern Europe. Professor Savce, noticing the works of
these writers, considers the neighborhood of the Baltic the most probable
region.
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
45
the possible exception of the legendary American migratory
movements of hunting tribes. In Europe and Asia such
complete migrations can be traced only to the pastoral
tribes of Arabia and Mongolia; there is no record of any
such movement of an agricultural people, such as the
Aryans had become in considerable measure at the period
of their supposed dispersion. That such a people could
have flowed out in several great successive waves of com-
plete migration to remote distances, is hardly credible,
and is utterly without warrant in the history of human
movements.
The Arabian outbreak of the Mohammedans was not a
migration in the complete sense. It was a swelling beyond
the national borders, incited by hope of plunder and desire
for religious propagandism. Arabia continued the centre
of the movement, and the only settlement made in a region
remote and disjoined from this central home was that
formed in Spain. This instance presents a suggestive par-
allel to that of the eastern Aryan branch, with its pious
horror of the impious tenets of its foes, and its wide sepa-
ration from its kindred race.
Yet the primitive Aryans, while advanced in great part
beyond that nomadic pastoral stage of industrial life which
has been the condition of all migrating peoples known to
history, had not yet reached that degree of political consol-
idation and religious culture requisite for definite invading
movements en masse for the purpose of propagandism. It
seems far more probable, therefore, that the movements of
the Aryans were expansions rather than migrations, — the
incessant bite of restless and enterprising tribes into the
domains of surrounding peoples. As their numbers in-
creased, and their primitive home became too small to hold
46
THE ARYAN RACE.
them, they may have pushed out in this manner in all di-
rections with the restless energy which has always charac-
terized them, driving back the original populations before
their resistless expansion. This idea would seem to indi-
cate an original home in some such central region as that
suggested by Peschel, midway between the eastern and
western extremities of the Aryan outflow, and offering easy
roads for expansion alike to the East and the AVest.
The majority of the recent authors, however, seem inclined
to accept the Baltic or the Scandinavian region as the pri-
meval Aryan home. Of the several arguments offered in
support of the latter hypothesis the most potent one is the
fact that Scandinavia is the only region of the earth now
occupied by pure Xanthochroi, who lose their typical char-
acters more and more as we advance southward, until they
are quite lost in the strong preponderance of Melanochroic
blood. But this is by no means a convincing argument. The
degree of mingling with the aboriginal inhabitants depended
very much on the numbers of these inhabitants and on the
character of their treatment by their conquerors. Either
strong resistance or strong race prejudice might have re-
sulted in their annihilation or their complete disposses-
sion. The only Scandinavian aborigines of whom we have
any knowledge are the Lapps, — a Mongolian people with
whom the Aryans have shown no inclination to mingle, and
who may originally have been driven back to the frozen
plains which they at present inhabit. The Xanthochroic
purity of the Scandinavians can be accounted for quite as
well on this as on the other theory. The Germans and
the Celts of Gaul were of equally pure Xanthochroic blood
as recently as the times of Caesar and Tacitus. Their loss
of purity of type is due to a mixture since that period with
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
47
the Melanochroic aboriginal element. No such mixture
appears to have taken place between the Scandinavians
and the Lapps.
A potent argument against the Scandinavian theory is
that the Aryans were a pastoral people in the early era of
the formation of their language, and partly pastoral at the
period of their migrations, their domesticated animals,
with the exception of the camel, being the same as those
possessed by the nomads of the Asiatic steppes. No pas-
toral people has ever originated except on broad, open
levels, with abundant pasturage, — a condition which the
Scandinavian peninsula does not present. Hunting and
fishing habits were the only ones likely to originate in that
wooded and seagirt land, except in the far North, where
the snowy levels gave an opportunity for the use of the
reindeer as a domesticated animal. But this native Scan-
dinavian beast of burden does not seem to have been known
to the primitive Aryans, — which would certainly not have
been the case had it been used by them or their immediate
neighbors. As the lack of a common word for the camel
has been used as an argument against Asia, so the similar
lack of a common word for the reindeer tells against Scandi-
navia as the primitive home of the Aiyans.
-
Nor does the region of the Baltic or the levels of north-
ern Russia answer any better to the requirements of the
case. It is not simply a land which the Aryans might have
inhabited in accordance with the indications of philology,
but one that is in harmony with their mode of life and
process of development, that we seek; and this can cer-
tainly not be found in a densely wooded region, such as the
Baltic provinces were in primeval times.'
At the period in which the Aryan method of speech
48
THE ARYAN RACE.
began to deviate from the Mongolian (to which it has the
closest affinities of type), and Aryan man to deviate per-
haps from the Finnish division of the Mongolian race
(which most closely approaches him in structure), the hab-
its of the Aryans appear to have been purely pastoral, and
probably long continued so. This is clearly indicated by
the character of the root-words of their languages. The
balance of probabilities, therefore, favors their residence in
a locality of Europe contiguous to that occupied by the
pastoral Mongolians and the Finns, and one naturally well
adapted to pastoral pursuits.
A brief study of the development of mankind shows us
that the pastoral habit has originated nowhere except on
the broad open plains and deserts of Asia and of north-
eastern Africa. No such pursuit has ever been followed
in mountain districts or forest regions. And the animals
possessed by the nomadic Aiyans were those indigenous
to Asia, with the exception of the camel, which is suited
only to sandy deserts. If the home of the pastoral
Aryans was in Europe, it must have been in a locality
adapted to this mode of life and contiguous to the Asiatic
steppes. The only European region which properly fulfils
these requirements is that of southern Russia. The re-
mainder of Russia and of northern Europe was then, and
is yet in considerable measure, a dense forest; while
southern Europe westward of this region is, from its moun-
tainous character, absolutely unfitted for the life of the
nomad shepherd and herdsman. But the region of south-
ern Russia, particularly in the vicinity of the Caspian, is
an open level plain, partly desert, partly of high fertility,
and presenting the requisites of contiguity to the Asiatic
steppes, the primeval home of the wandering herdsman,
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
49
and of excellent adaptation to pastoral pursuits. It is
simply impossible that such pursuits could have originated
or been maintained in a forest country, nor is it conceiv-
able that the barbarians of that age had the means or the
inclination to clear the land of forests for the purpose of
providing pasturage.
The next subject of consideration is the fact that the
Aryans gradually lost their nomadic habits, assumed a settled
state of existence, and began to practise agriculture, which
in time they developed to an extent that rendered their
pastoral pursuits of secondary importance. Their locality
must have been one suited to this change of industrial
habits. An inquiry into the requisites for the development
of agriculture is therefore here in place.
Again we must leave the forest and seek open and
naturally fertile regions. So far as we know or have
satisfactory reason to believe, agriculture in the Eastern
Hemisphere originated only in localities specially favored
by nature. It arose on the highly fertile banks of the
Nile, of the Tigris and the Euphrates, of the Ganges and
the Indus, and on the rich lowlands of the great rivers
of China. There were agricultural districts elsewhere in
Asia, it is true ; but it is probable that these localities
derived their knowledge of the art from the regions
named, and not from a spontaneous development. In
America similar indications present themselves. The agri-
culture of the United States region not improbably arose
on the rich border-lands of the lower Mississippi, and was
disseminated northward by the Mound-Builders. Like
conditions probably attended its origin in Mexico and
Peru.
There is, in fact, not a particle of evidence in existence
4
50
THE ARYAN RACE.
that agricultural habits ever originated spontaneously in a
cold forest region such as that of the Baltic, while this
region was too far removed from the agricultural districts
of Africa and Asia for the art to be gained through com-
merce or instruction. Such a region, while utterly un-
adapted to pastoral pursuits, is equally unsuited to the
gradual exchange of these for agricultural conditions. In
short, the only pursuits which appear to have ever naturally
arisen in forest-covered countries are those of the hunter;
with those of the fisher where large bodies of water are
contiguous. And as respects the districts of northern
Germany, what we know of the habits of the tribes in the
days of the Roman empire indicates that they were not
only disinclined to agricultural progress, but that they
showed a tendency to neglect the agricultural knowledge
they already possessed, and to revert to the hunting stage,
so well suited to their forest surroundings.
On the contrary, the region of southern Russia and the
Caucasus, from its openness, its fertility of soil and suita-
bility of climate, and its contiguity to the Syrian district
of Asia, from which the art of the agriculturist might have
been readily gained, seems particularly well adapted to
the gradual change from pastoral to agricultural pursuits,
particularly within the limits of the mountain range, which
the expanding nomads would naturally have penetrated,
and which were unsuited to the life of the herdsman.
There is still one matter of importance to consider. We
have given what seem to us satisfactory reasons for the
belief that the Xanthochroi are not an original race of man-
kind, but a derivative from a preceding race, in all proba-
bility from the Mongolian, and that their origin dates from
a somewhat recent period. Yet the development of a new
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
51
type of feature and new structural conditions of body could
hardly have taken place in regions similar in physical char-
acter to those native to the parent race. We have seen that
this race frequently assumes a type of face and complexion
closely approaching the Aryan ; but such a tendency could
not well have a general development except as due to a
marked change in physical surroundings and conditions of
life, as in the case of the American Indians and the Mon-
golians of northern Europe. In the instance of the Aryans
the change may have been due to residence in a mountain-
ous district such as that of the Caucasus. In such a
region, with its great difference in climate, physical sur-
roundings, and necessary life-habits and industries from
life on a plain, a marked change in structure might well
have taken place, while the conditions of existence might
have necessitated a gradual development of that art of
agriculture which was already practised in the neighboring
district of southwestern Asia.
For the various reasons here given, and others which
will be advanced in the next chapter, we incline to look
upon southeastern Russia as the home of the Aryans dur-
ing their nomadic era, and the Caucasian mountain region
as the locality in which they gained their fair complexion
and the other characteristics of the Xanthochroic type, per-
fected the Aryan method of language, learned the art of
agriculture, and developed their political and religious
ideas and organization.
From this mountain stronghold, in which they could
well have sustained themselves against all aggression
during the long period of their development as a distinct
people, they probably spread into the fertile plains of
southeast Russia, occupying the district between the Cas-
52
THE ARYAN RACE.
pian and the Sea of Azov, and extending an indefinite
distance northward and westward. Their northern border-
lands may have been the home of the primitive Russians,
since these deviate less from the Mongolians than any
other section of the Aryans, and bear to-day a close
resemblance in physical aspect to the Finns. Had the
Aryan type of language been imposed upon the Finns,
and the latter thus been classed as an outlying member
of the race, we should have an almost unbroken line of
deviation, leading from the typical Xanthochroi to the
Mongolian type of man.
The region we have indicated as the primitive home of
the Aryans has a further point in its favor. This is its
propinquity to the Semitic populations of the South, and
the ease with which the fair and dark types might have
mingled in that early stage of culture which preceded
strong political and religious antipathies. It seems a
natural point of meeting of the highest outcome of the
races of the North and the South, and may have much to
do with the existing strongly Melanochroic character of
the southern Aryans. And to it may be due that strong
invigoration of the Aryan intellect, by the infusion of the
imaginative element of the Southern mind into the practi-
cal groundwork of Mongolian mentality, which was neces-
sary to the unfoldment of its high powers of thought and
to the development of the energy which has carried the
race with unflagging persistence outward from its narrow
primeval home to the conquest of the world.
At a later period came the development of property
rights, of the exclusive Aryan system of clanship, and
of religious bigotry and fanaticism; and with it a strong
feeling of hostility to strangers, and a rigid effort at isola-
THE HOME OF THE ARYANS.
53
tion, such as we find in similar historical cases. Such con-
ditions would have checked the infiltration of alien blood,
and given an opportunity for the full development of the
Aryan type of speech and of social, political, and religious
institutions undisturbed by foreign influence.
Scarcely a trace of such influences appears in the lan-
guage and institutions of the Aryans ; and whatever its
steps of origin, the Aryan, in all the details of structure
and in mental character, is among the most distinct and
declared of human races, and is markedly separated from
all other tribes and divisions of mankind.
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
TF we look back through time to the most remote point
to which the scope of history or tradition extends, it
is to behold Europe and Asia the scene of active movement
and endless turmoil. Everywhere tribes, communities, na-
tions,'are in motion, extending their borders, overrunning
one another’s domains, battling for the choice spots of the
earth, thirsting for the wealth which the industry of the
more civilized holds out to the avarice of the more bar-
barous. It is everywhere the same. Alike in Italy and
Greece, in Syria and Babylonia, in Persia and India, in
China and Scythia, the tribes and nations are moving with
the bewildering confusion of a phantasmagoria. It is to
us a shifting of names rather than of peoples. Numerous
titles of tribes have descended to our times, but we know
very little of the communities which these names represent;
and the surface of the earth at this early epoch appears to
us like that of a chess-board on which meaningless figures
are incessantly moving to and fro. Of only one thing we
can be sure. We are aware of the general race-relations
of these migrating peoples. We know that the movements
in Europe and in southern-central Asia are mainly Aryan,
while the Syrian movements are Semitic, and those of
northern Asia are Mongolian. Of the migratory excur-
sions of the period in question much the most extensive
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
55
are the Aryan, the movements being wider, and the hold
upon new regions more decided, than in the case of the
other races of mankind.
Cut that this condition of affairs is representative of the
whole scope of human history, from the earliest date of
man’s appearance upon the earth until the present time,
can hardly be affirmed. Such a migratory spirit has ex-
isted throughout the period of recorded history, but its
results have been steadily growing more extensive during
the progress of civilization. The movements which our
earliest records present to us are minor in character.
Wc perceive migrations of small tribes to short distances,
in place of the subsequent marches of great armies over
thousands of miles. Such is the character of the early
migratory movements and hostile excursions as recorded
in the Bible, and of the similar movements of the Italian
and Grecian tribes. Such was also the case with the mili-
tary enterprise of the primitive civilizations. The records
of the early dynasties of Egypt and Babylonia yield no
evidence of extensive operations. The story of ancient
China is that of the battling of tribes. Nor was this
growing empire as yet exposed to any serious danger from
the pastoral hordes of the North, who had not yet learned
the art of moving in mass.
The limited enterprise which we thus behold at the open-
ing of history, as compared with the extensive movements
of a later period, is significant of a still more diminished
migratory activity in the prehistoric ages. The spirit of
outflow had perhaps just become active, and the mingling
of the races but fairly commenced, when historical records
begin. In fact a considerable degree of intellectual ad-
vancement is necessary to any active enterprise of this
56
THE ARYAN RACE.
character. We find nothing of the kind among the sav-
age peoples of the earth. The savages of to-day make
no effort to extend their domains. Each tribe naturally
spreads until it reaches the borders of another tribe, and
there it rests in dull contentment. This border-line is
usually a line of hostility, but not of energetic movements
of invasion. In Africa, for instance, we hear of no migra-
tions of the full-blooded Negro tribes. Activity is confined
to the Foulahs and other mixed races. That much move-
ment took place in the early epoch we have good reason
to believe, from the evidences of a very ancient occupation
of the whole earth. But this was perhaps largely due to
human fecundity, not to human enterprise. From the ori-
ginal centre or centres of population man slowly spread
out, as his numbers increased, to occupy the earth, with
only the difficulties of nature and the hostility of wild
beasts to check his outflow. This expansion may have
taken many thousands of years for its completion. But
when the earth was once fully occupied, a strong check
took place. Everywhere man met man. Doubtless an
incessant hostility ruled, but nothing existed which we
can properly term aggressive war. Each tribe or race
remained confined to its ancient domain, with but slow
and unimportant widening or shifting of borders. Only
those peoples who by a greater advance in intellect had
become superior in arms and in enterprise, slowly spread
outward, gradually pushing back their weaker and duller
neighbors.
The views here offered are in accordance with the facts
indicated by the existing condition of human races. We
are aware how great a mixture of races has taken place
since the opening of the historic period. Pure races are
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
57
in the minimum, mixed races are in the maximum, through-
out the earth. And this is particularly the case in the
regions of greatest civilization. It is strongly displayed
in southern Asia, and still more strongly in southern
Europe. For any near approach to purity of race in a
people we must seek the regions of barbarism and sav-
agery, mainly the locality bordering on the Arctic Circle,
and the tropics of Africa and America. Had an energetic
migratory and invasive spirit existed during the long
centuries of the human past bearing any close relation to
that of the early historic period, a complete mixture of
mankind must have taken place, and the existence of well-
marked races to-day would have been impossible. Race-
distinctions would have been obliterated, as they now are
to a great extent in the centres of active civilization. The
epoch of the rise of an active migratory spirit, then,
is one of great importance in the history of mankind.
This epoch was probably the one immediately preceding
the birth of recorded history, if we may judge from indi-
cations. "We see evidences of such a spirit in the early
history of China, Babylonia, and Egypt, probably con-
siderably preceding its appearance among the Aryans.
And yet the latter, when once they entered the circle of
migfatory activity, speedily became the most enterprising
of human races. There are reasons for these conclusions
in the history and conditions of these several races.
The industrial and political condition of the Aryans
greatly differed from that of the Semites and the Mongo-
lians. The latter were nomadic pastoral peoples. The
Aryans, though strongly pastoral at first, became to some
extent agricultural at a remote date. The indications are
that they were not nomadic in the period immediately pre-
58
THE ARYAN RACE.
ceding history, and that they were divided into a great
number of small groups. This we judge from their politi-
cal system, that of the Village Communitj7, which must
have been long in developing, and which indicates a pro-
tracted period of fixed residence and agricultural habits.
As a result of this system they were greatly inferior in
political consolidation to the nomad tribes of the desert.
Each of these formed a single group. The Aryans were
divided into many small groups, diverse in their interests.
The desert tribes were accustomed to rapid and extensive
movements, in which they carried their property with them.
The Aryans were tied to their property, which consisted,
in part, at least, of fixed soil, and not entirely of moving
herds, as with the nomads. And, finally, the organization
of the nomad tribe was that of an army. It was under
its single sheik, or patriarchal leader, who directed all its
movements, and who might at any time set in train an
invading enterprise. The Aryan organization was that
of a community of equals. It was thoroughly democratic,
and only by a slow process of development did it come
under the control of warlike chiefs or leaders. It was
not invasive, though it probably held its own vigorously
against invasion.
From this difference in condition we can understand
the difference in the history of the agricultural and the
nomad peoples. The nomads of the northern and south-
ern deserts, while perhaps inferior, even then, to the Aiy-
ans in intellectual vigor and in industrial development,
were far better adapted for migratory movements and for
the invasion of neighboring regions. This doubtless
explains the invading movements in China, Babylonia,
and probably Egypt, and the establishment of powerful
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
59
agricultural kingdoms in these localities under a form of
government closely analogous to that of the .pastoral
hordes of the desert, while yet the Aryans remained in a
barbaric state, slowly advancing industrially, but almost
stagnant politically.
-
The subsequent difference in the historical development
of these races is due to the fact that the Aiyan political
organization is one that admits of steady unfoldment,
while that of the pastoral races is essentially primitive
and unprogressive. The only change the latter are capa-
ble of is the extension of the rule of an able chief from a
single tribe to a wide circle of tribes,—to which we owe
the terrible Mongolian migrations of the Middle Ages.
Yet these could produce no important permanent effect,
since they lacked any strong principle of political consoli-
dation. The Aryan principle, on the contrary, was one
which but slowly developed, with the increase of authority
in the tribal chief, but it was one that depended much less
on able leaders than on vitality of organization. Thus
the Aryan movements have beeu persistent instead of
occasional, and their effects permanent instead of transi-
tory. Where the Aryan sets his foot, there he stays.
There have been some temporary yieldings before the wild
onslaught of feebly combined pastoral hordes ; but these
have in nearly every instance been recovered from, and
the Aryan movement has been and is steadily onward,
driving back before its firm front all the other races of
mankind.
If now we come to consider particularly the outflow of
the Aryan race from its primitive home, we must begin by
seeking to trace its condition and relation to other tribes
at that epoch. As to the locality of this home, we have
60
THE ARYAN RACE.
given what seems to us the most probable of the several
theories ; namety, that it w'as in the region of southeastern
Europe, stretching from the Black to the Caspian Sea,
and probably northward to a considerable distance over
the level steppes of Russia, with their chill climate and
their excellent natural adaptation to both pastoral and agri-
cultural habits. Southward it may have occupied the range
of the Caucasus, and perhaps have crossed this range and
extended some distance into the mountainous district to
the south.
In addition to the reasons alread}T given for this hypoth-
esis, it ma}T be remarked that it would be difficult to select
a region better adapted to be the cradle-spot of the future
conquerors of the earth. No district in Europe or Asia is
better protected against invasion. With broad seas to the
right and the left, and a lofty mountain-chain to the south,
passable only at two easily-defended points, it is only ap-
proachable from the north. In the early da}Ts of the race,
when it may have been stationed in close contiguity to and
within these mountain-fastnesses, it could have defied all
invaders, as the modern Caucasian mountaineers so long
defied the power of Russia. Here developing in stature,
in physical conformation, in intellect, and in habits of
settled life, of agricultural industry, and of democratic
organization ; and here perhaps receiving a new spirit of
enthusiasm through partial amalgamation with the Melano-
ehroic peoples of the South,— the typical Aiyan race origi-
nated, as we conceive, and began its outflow in a slow
movement northward over the flat and fertile plains which
stretch away from the very foot of the Caucasian chain.1
1 It may be said here that a movement of this precise character has
prevailed throughout the historic period among the Russian agricultu-
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
61
At a date preceding that of the more active migratory
movement, this slow preliminary growth northward may
have spread the Aryans over a district of considerable
extent, and already divided them into several distinct and
mutually hostile branches, with dialectical variations of
language and marked peculiarities of custom. The system
of language doubtless originated while the race was con-
tracted in locality and numbers. The dialectical varia-
tions arose after its expansion. The skeleton of Aryan
speech was the same in all the subsequent branches, yet
considerable superficial differences existed. Possibly the
Celtic, the Teutonic, the Greco-Italic, the Iranic, and the
other main steins of Aryan speech had already strongly
declared themselves while yet the race remained a compact
body, its outermost branch still in the vicinity of the
primeval home.
At this period the region which the Aryans were after-
ward to occupy was in the hands of alien races. Southern
Asia, from Armenia to India, was held by tribes partly
Mongolian, and partly perhaps of Melanochroic race. So
far as India is concerned, we know this to have been the
case, from the very abundant remains of the aborigines yet
existing. In Persia, Afghanistan, etc., there are fewer
traces of the aborigines; they have mainly perished or
been incorporated with the conquerors. In Europe the
only existing distinct communities of the aborigines are
the Lapps and Finns of the North, and the Basques of
the Southwest. All the remaining aborigines have sunk
rists, and still persists. There is plentiful room for expansion in that
broad land, and the farmers seek new localities as necessity or fancy
dictates. This migratory spirit has been made use of by the Russian
Government to colonize their newly conquered lands.
62
THE ARYAN RACE.
beneath the Aryan tide, though it seems certain that much
amalgamation has taken place. In fact, at the very be-
ginning of European annals the domain of the Aryans
seemed nearly as extensive as now. TYe have no clear
trace of the aboriginal inhabitants. Several names sur-
vive, such as Pelasgians, Leleges, Amazons, Iberians, and
Aborigines, as the titles of ancient Mediterranean pop-
ulations ; but just what these names indicate, no one can
positively declare. The Pelasgians were possibly an early
Aryan tribe of migrants, though this lacks satisfactory evi-
dence. The Iberians are now taken as the clearest repre-
sentatives of the ancient European race. The Etruscans
of Italy may also have been members of this race ; but the
remnants of their language are too scanty to admit of a
decision, and it is held by man}7 that they were Aryans.
Of the nearly mythical peoples named, the title of
Iberians was applied by the old geographers to the pre-
Aryan inhabitants of the peninsula of Spain and the
southwest of France, whose final remnant is supposed to
exist in the Basques. But everything in relation to the
Iberians is exceedingly uncertain. \Ye now know, how-
ever, that an aboriginal people, the Neolithic, or users of
polished stone implements, of small stature, with round or
oval skulls, occupied this region at a remote period, and
extended into Britain, Belgium, Germany, and Denmark.
They resembled the Basques physically more than any
other living people of that region, and possibly extended
into Africa and formed part of the Berber population.
This was probably the antique European element, semi-
savage or barbarous in condition, with which the Aryans
came into contact, and which they partly annihilated and
partly absorbed. Indications of such an amalgamation
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
63
exist in the historic Celtiberians of Spain, — a supposed
mingling of the Celts with the Iberians. Other indica-
tions exist in the small, dark type of man found to-day in
Aquitania and Brittany, and also in Wales, in the Scottish
Highlands, and in parts of Ireland.
As to the localities occupied by the branches of the
Aryan people in the period just preceding the era of inva-
sion, some tentative suggestions may be made. As above
said, the race probably occupied a considerable district,
and comprised several distinct and perhaps hostile divis-
ions. Of these, that which we now know as the Celtic
was the móst westerly in situation, the most divergent in
language, aud possibly the most hostile in feeling towards
its kindred. The Teutonic branch probably occupied the
most northwesterly situation, the Indo-Iranian the most
southeasterly, and the Greco-Italic the most south-
westerly, while the Slavonic occupied the central and
northern regions. This conjecture is mainly based on
what we know of the directions and dates of march of
the different branches, and partly upon another circum-
stance. This is that the northerly portion of the popu-
lation would naturally be least exposed to the influx of
Melanochroic blood, and the southerly portion the most
so. Thus the typical Xanthochroi would be specially
found in the border regions to the north and west, — those
here ascribed to the Celtic and Teutonic branches. It is
in the Teutonic branch that the typical Xanthochroi are
still mainly found, and particularly in its frontier portion,
— that which made its way to Scandinavia. As for the
adjoining Slavonians, their most northerly section, the
Lithuanian, is to-day distinguished by the fair hair and
blue eyes of the Xanthochroi from the darker Russians of
64
THE ARYAN RACE.
the South. On the other hand, the Indo-Persian branch
is strongly Melanochroic. This is also the case with
the Greco-Italians. As for the Celts, they are known to
have presented originally a strong displaj- of Xanthochroic
characters, though these have been lost through their sub-
sequent amalgamations.
There is, therefore, reason to believe that all the north-
ern Aryans — the Celts, Teutons, and Slavonians — were
originally of the pure blond type, and very little affected
in their native home by admixture with an alien element.
This may be deduced from the fact that all the early his-
torians describe them, after the date of their migration, as
a large-framed, blue-eyed, fair-haired people. The strong
probability is that their present diversity of type resulted
from intermarriage with Melanochroic and Mongolian
aborigines at a comparatively recent period. In the geo-
graphical scheme we have adopted, this section of the
primitive Aryans occupied the fertile plains extending
northward and westward from the Caucasian range. The
southern section, the Greco-Italic and the Indo-Iranian,
which may have occupied the southern portion of the
range and the mountainous district farther south, would
be in a position to mingle freely with the Melanochroi of
Armenia, Asia Minor, etc., before their migration. Their
present strongly declared Melanochroic character may be
due mainly to such an antique intermixture, and in a lesser
degree to subsequent admixture with the aborigines of
their later homes.
It is not improbable that the Celts led the vanguard in
the great Aryan march. In fact they had begun to meet
the fate of their dispossessed foes at the opening of the
historic period, and were being more and more crowded
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
65
into the most westerly portions of the European continent
by later invaders of their own race. The incitement to
their first movement we shall never know. Probably the
Aryan giant was growing beyond the dimensions of its
natal home, and needed more space for its developing
limbs. More than one of the historic migrations has been
due to a pressure from behind, as in the case of the Huns.
Such a hostile pressure may have set the Celts in motion,
and, indeed, may have kept them in motion, it proving
easier to overcome the uncultured aborigines in front than
to endure the Aryan pressure from the rear. The move-
ment of the Celts seems to have been always one of
onward push, if we may judge from what is known of their
history.
The Celtic was probably the easiest of the Aryan mi-
grations. It met with less capable foes, as we may con-
jecture, than the eastern migration, while all subsequent
European invasions had Aryans to deal with, and there-
fore found a far more difficult path to victory. When
this first outflow took place it is impossible to guess. It
may, and may not, have been far back in the prehistoric
era; and it is impossible to say how many centuries were
occupied in the movement. The Aryans were yet learn-
ing the art of invasion. They had not the arms or the
military skill of the later migrants. Their progress was
possibly a very slow one. As for the extant history
of this Celtic migration, it may be outlined in a few words.
When first we become acquainted with the Celts, they
occupied a very extensive district, comprising most of
Europe west of the Rhine, and the domain of Cisalpine
Gaul in northern Italy. They had probably long before
crossed the Channel and settled the British Islands.
66
THE ARYAN RACE.
But Spain appears still to have been held by the
aborigines.
The earliest of the Celtic military movements of which
history tells us was that famous one, under the lead of
Brennus, which captured the young city of Rome, and but
for a chance in the chapter of accidents might have stifled
that scorpion in its birth. A centuiy later another Brennus
led a Gaulish force far to the east, which ravaged Thrace,
pillaged the Grecian temple of Delphi, and received from
Nicomedus, king of Bithyuia, a settlement in Asia Minor,
in the district called after them Galatia. After having
met the ocean in its westward course, the Celtic migration
was apparently reacting eastward. As to the boundary
between the Germans and the Celts at this early period, it
cannot be clearly defined. Most probabty it was formed
by the Rhine, from its sources in Switzerland to its mouth
in the North Sea. The later history of the Celts is well
known, and we need not here concern ourselves with the
numerous invasions, Roman, German, Saxon, and Norman,
to which they were subjected, and by which they wrere
crowded into their present contracted domain.
But there are phenomena of race-variation in the history
of the Celts to which some allusion must be made. When
they first appeared in history they were of the pure blond
type, and had the stature, physical strength, and fierceness of
the barbaric Xanthochroi. The Gauls,” says Ammianus
Marcelliuus, u are almost all tall of stature, very fair and
red-haired, and horrible from the fierceness of their eyes;
fond of strife and haughtily insolent.” 1 This, in fact,
seems to have been the character, physical and mental, of
all the Aryans who peopled the north and wTest of Europe,
1 Latham, Natural History of Man, p. 194.
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
67
though it is by no means the case with the great mass of
the peoples who are supposed to be descended from them.
There seems to have been a very considerable infusion of
a darker and smaller human element, — probably that of the
aborigines, who doubtless much exceeded their invaders in
number. In this way a vigorous influx of Melanochroic
blood seems to have entered the veins of the blue-eyed and
fair-haired primitive Celts.
From this combination comes the French population of
to-day. Here we find a blond type yet existing in the
North, while the central districts are occupied by the mod-
ern Celtic type, with upturned nose, somewhat depressed
at the bridge and but little projecting, hair brown or dark
chestnut, eyes gray or light in shade. Such are the people
of Auvergne and the Low Bretons, —a small and swarthy,
round-headed race. In southern France several types are
found, and there seems a strong infusion of Basque and
Berber blood. Something similar might be said of the
Celtic districts of the British Islands. In fact, as the
Celts conquered the ancient inhabitants by force of arms
and of energy, the aborigines seem to have conquered the
Celts by force of numbers. As M. Roget says, the blue-
eyed, fair-haired, long-headed Celt has been giving place
in France in a direction from the south to the north to a
more ancient, dark-eyed, black-haired, round-headed type.
There has been a corresponding change in character, and
the impulsive, emotional mentality of the aborigines has
triumphed over the more staid and thoughtful character of
the Xanthochroic man.
So far as indications go, the path of the Celts from
ancient Ary a was due westward through middle Europe.
They seem to have been followed by two other Aryan
68
THE ARYAN RACE.
branches,—that of the Teutons, which trod in the Celtic
path, and that of the Greco-Italic section, which may have
pushed through the mountains and along the southern
shores of the Black Sea, making Asia Minor its line of
march. Neither of these subsequent invasions found as
easy a task as that of the Celts, if we may judge by indi-
cations. The latter had only the aborigines to deal with;
but the former came into contact with the fierce and warlike
Celts, who were quite their equal in vigor and in the arts
of war. Perhaps in consequence of this we find a diver-
sion in these later lines of march, the southern branch con-
fining itself to the peninsulas of Greece and Italy, while
the northern branch pushed into upper Germany and sent
its leading tribes far into the Scandinavian peninsula. The
Celts may have stood as a firm wedge in the median line
of Europe, splitting the subsequent lines of march, and
forcing them to diverge to the south and the north.
Of these migrants the Teutonic were strongly of the
xanthous, or blond type, and their Scandinavian section
has continued so to this day, preserving for us in consider-
able purity that type of physical and mental character
which has been so greatly modified elsewhere by the infu-
sion of alien blood. The intellect of this Xanthochroic
division, as described by Dr. Knox,1 is not inventive, has
no genius for the abstract, no love for metaphysical specu-
lation, cares nothing for the transcendental, and is naturally
sceptical, bringing everything, even its religious faith, to
the test of reason. In this description we seem to have
the highest outcome of the practical Mongolian mind, — an
intellectual condition capable of the greatest things when
once kindled by the fire of imagination, but unprogressive
in itself.
1 The Paces of Man, p. 314.
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
G9
The ancient Aryan inhabitants of Germany are described
by Tacitus as a tall and vigorous people, with long, fair
hair and fierce blue eyes. They lacked somewhat the
reckless impulsiveness of the Gauls, yet were as fierce and
brave as the latter. To speak, however, of a Celtic fol-
lowed by a Teutonic Aryan migration, is to deal with the
subject from a general point of view. There seem to
have been many successive waves of the A^an flood, each
pushing forward the preceding, and giving rise to numer-
ous separate tribes. It is only linguistically that they can
be called distinctively Celtic and Teutonic. They formed
successive migrating sections of the two most northwest-
erly branches of the Aiyan stock. Thus Caesar describes
Gaul as inhabited by three distinct nations, — the Aquitani,
the Gauls, and the Belgae. Of these the Aquitani are
supposed to have been aborigines, with some Celtic admix-
ture. The Gauls are described as bright, intelligent, viva-
cious, frank, open, and brave. The Belgae were more
staid, less active, more thoughtful, and less easily exalted
or depressed. They approached the Germans in character,
and had least varied from the primitive type. The Ger-
mans, in their turn, were divided into several branches
which spoke distinct languages, and into numerous tribes.
Probably they entered the country in several successive
waves from the east. The Xanthochroic Germans of the
time of Tacitus, however, have since then suffered much
the same fate as the Celts. There has been a great amount
of mixture with a dark-haired people, and the modem Ger-
mans have lost all distinctiveness of race, though they are
less Melanochroic than the peoples of southern Europe.
Probably they, like the Celts, amalgamated with their con-
quered subjects and with the Melanochroic peoples border-
70
-
THE ARYAN RACE.
ing their domain on the south. However that be, there is
to-day no distinctive Teutonic type; every variety of
man, from fair to dark, can be found on German soil.
Tacitus gives us much interesting information concern-
ing the habits and conditions of the Germans of his time,
which is of importance from its probable close affinity to
the life of the primitive Aryans. Their dress seems to
have been very scanty, consisting mainly of a mantle of
coarse woollen stuff, flung over the shoulders and fastened
with a pin or a thorn. Farther north mantles of fur were
worn. Their dwellings were low circular huts made of rough
timber, thatched with straw, and with a hole at the top for
the escape of the smoke. The inner walls were roughly
colored, and cattle sometimes shared the interior with the
family. Their dwellings did not stand close together, but
apart and scattered, each freeman choosing his own home.
Their favorite occupations were war and the chase, and
there is very little indication of agriculture. When not
thus engaged, they often lay idly on the hearth, leaving all
necessary labor to the women and to men not capable
of bearing arms. In their social gatherings drunkenness
and gambling were prevalent evils. Their arms were a
long spear and a shield, with occasionally clubs aud battle-
axes. Each freeman was expected to bear arms and
march to battle under his own clan head, the tribe being
led by its hereditary chief or its chosen herzog, or general.
Thus constituted, they rushed to battle, roused to fury by
the excitement of war, and striving to intimidate their foes
by loud shouts and the clashing of shields. The loss of a
shield in battle was the loss of honor, and the despair of
the loser frequently ended in suicide.
Latest of the northern Aryan migrations came that of
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
71
the Slavonic tribes, pushing hard on the heels of the Ger-
mans, and driving them forward into the heart of Europe.
This movement was probably contemporaneous with the
historic period of southern Europe. It carried the Slavic
race much farther into Europe than it has been able to
maintain itself, since the reaction of German valor has
driven back the Slavs to their present borders,—the west-
ern limits of Poland, Bohemia, and Russia. In this connec-
tion it is somewhat singular that both Berlin and Vienna,
the German capitals, stand on ancient Slavonic ground.
More to the south they have held their own, — in eastern
Austria and in the northern and western districts of Euro-
pean Turkey. Probably one of the earliest of the Slavonic
movements was that of the Lithuanians, — a people with a
language of distinct individuality, who have preserved the
Xanthochroic physical character far better than their Rus-
sian kindred. Back of all these outlying branches came the
Russians proper, — seemingly the last of the Aryans to leave
their ancestral home. In fact, if our idea of the location
of this home is correct, the Russians still occupied it at the
opening of the historic period, or had moved but a short
distance to the west. In the fifth and sixth centuries we
first gain a clear vision of this people, then occupying a
limited region in the territory of Little Russia, in the neigh-
borhood of the present Russian district of Kiev. Here
was the germ of the great empire which has since so widely
spread, under rulers of Teutonic blood. The region indi-
cated is in the immediate vicinity of that which we have
considered to be the probable locality of the northern sec-
tion of the primitive Aryans. The Slavonic branch was
doubtless the last to leave the old Aryan home, if it can
be said to have left it at all. There certainly remains a
72
THE ARYAN RACE.
people of Slavonic affinity in the region which we have
conjectured to be the mountain birthplace of the Aryan
race; namely, the Ossetians of the Caucasian range.
“This people,” says Pallas, “exactly resemble the peas-
ants in the north of Russia; they have in general, like
them, either brown or light hair, occasionally also red
beards. They appear to be very ancient inhabitants of
these mountains.” The Slavonian migration, after its first
fierce outward push into western Europe, apparently be-
came a very deliberate one. It is important to notice
that it has not yet ceased. From the first entrance of the
Slavic race into history it has been yielding to the pressure
of the Teutonic race in the west, but pushing its way per-
sistently to the north and east. At the same time it has
been mingling intimately with the Mongolian race, and has
acquired strong peculiarities of feature and character in con-
sequence. The Mongolian blood and type of mind have
partly reconquered the Russian from the Aryan race.
The Slavonic movement has been one of slow agricul-
tural expansion rather than of warlike enterprise. The
Slavs are the least restless, the least warlike, and the least
progressive of all the Aiwan branches. They have the
most faithfully preserved to modern times the ancient
institutions and the antique grammatical methods; and
the indications are that they could have indulged but
little in the disturbing game of war and migration in the
prehistoric period. They seem to be the home-staying
Aryans, the keepers of the old homestead, who remained
on the ancestral domain while all their brethren wTent
abroad. Their movement has been mainly that steady
outgrowth of the- farm before which the nomad horde can
never sustain itself.
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
73
Gibbon remarks of them that ‘ ‘ the same race of Sclav-
onians appears to have maintained, in every age, the pos-
session of the same countries. . . . The fertility of the soil,
rather than the labor of the natives, supplied the rustic
plenty of the Sclavonians. Their sheep and horned cattle
were large and numerous, and the fields which they sowed
with millet or panic afforded, in the place of bread, a
coarse and less nutritious food.” 1 Such are the conditions
which probably existed in the primitive Aryan home. The
ancient Slavs were not distinguished for bravery. Their
military achievements were, as Gibbon remarks, those of
spies and stragglers rather than those of warriors, and
they were incessantly exposed to the rapine of fiercer and
more warlike neighbors. This hardly applies, however, to
the southern Slavonians, who invaded the eastern Roman
empire with vigor and success, and who treated their pris-
oners with the most savage cruelty.
The characteristics of the Russian Slavonic population,
as above given, are not those of the Aryan race as gener-
ally known. In fact, the Slavs of Russia have lost their
distinctive Aryan character yet more fully than the Celts
have in the West. In both cases the language and insti-
tutions have been retained, but the race-distinction has
largely vanished. The Russians frequently present a close
resemblance to the Mongolian type, and either have be-
come largely mingled with, or originally closely resembled,
the Finns, as is indicated by the dark skin and yellow
beard so common among the peasants. The face is hol-
lowed out, as it were, between the projecting brow and
chin. The race is tall, but not robust, strong, but not
energetic, and displays a general character of apathy.
1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, iv. 197.
74
THE ARYAN RACE.
They lack invention, but are admirable imitators, like the
Mongolians. In fact they present decided Mongolian
characteristics. In the southeast the Slavs are dark, with
dark hair and eyes. These comprise the Croats, the Ser-
vians, and the Slavonians proper. But the Slovaks of
Austria possess the fair skin and red or flaxen hair of the
northern Russians. It is, in truth, a race of manifold
mixture, the only character common to all Slavs being
braehycephaly, — a Mongolian characteristic. It is a race
which lacks much of the intellectual vigor and the restless
energy of the purer Aryans. These remarks, however,
apply mainly to the peasantry. In the blood of the ruling
class there is a considerable infusion of the German and
Scandinavian element, and it is to this class that we owe
the migratory activity of modern Russia. The character-
istic of the peasantry is apathetically to stay where they
are placed, though always ready to migrate where a decided
agricultural advantage appears. This survival of an an-
tique custom is a valuable aid to the colonizing enterprise
of the Government.
The movements of the northern Aryans were matched by
an equally active expansion of the darker-skinned southern
sections, the fathers of the Greek and Latin, the Persian
and Indian, civilizations. We know as little concerning
the dates of these movements as of those of the North. In
speaking of the Celtic as the earliest migration, this may
apply only to the northern movement. That of the South
may have been contemporaneous with or antecedent to it.
When histoiy opens, the Celts are still in active movement.
The}7 have not completed their work. The Germans are
visibly moving, and the Slavonic tribes have probably not
yet left the region of ancient Arya. But no historic trace
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
75
of such a movement can be found in the story of the
Greeks and Italians. When first seen they are in full
possession of their historic realm, and retain not even a
tradition of a migratory movement. They proudly term
themselves autochthones, the original possessors of the
soil. We can deem their movement as contemporaneous
with, or later than, that of the Celts only from its south-
ward diversion and the fact of the Celtic possession of
central and western Europe. Yet this may be due to the
one migration being to the north, and the other to the
south, of the Black Sea.
In our scheme of the primeval Aryan home the ances-
tors of the Greeks and Italians occupy the southwestern re-
gion, — perhaps continuous in their northern borders with
the Celts, if we may judge from certain affinities of lan-
guage. Their location is the Caucasian mountain district
and the northeastern region of Asia Minor. Such seems
probable from what we are able to discover of their move-
ments, and also from their much greater loss of the Xan-
thochroic race-element than in the northern Aryans.
Though not destitute of the blond type of complexion,
the brown type was the prevalent one. They had proba-
bly considerably mixed with the brown Southerners before
their migration ; yet they never forgot that the blue-eyed
and fair-haired type was that of their ancestral race, and
to the last they preserved an admiration for it.
The line of Grecian march, so far as we can trace it by
linguistic evidence, appears to have been through Asia
Minor. The Greek testimon}T would make Greece their
native home, and the settlements in Asia Minor the out-
come of colonizing movements. But modern research has
led to a different opinion, and indicates that at least the
76
THE ARYAN RACE.
Ionians originally came from Asia Minor. The typical
Hellenes can be traced, with considerable assurance, to the
highlands of Phrygia, — a fertile region of northwestern
Asia Minor, such as a tribe of mountaineers would natur-
ally make a stopping-place in its westward march. Here
perhaps they long halted, increased greatly in numbers,
and gave off successive divisions, which pushed westward
into Greece, while the vanguard of the march made its
way into Italy.
All we know of the history of early Greece is that it
was inhabited by a people called Pelasgians by the later
inhabitants, but of whose derivation we are in absolute
ignorance. Much has been written about them. We are
told of a great wave of migration which carried over the
Hellespont into Europe a population which diffused itself
through Greece and the Peloponnesus, as well as over the
coasts and islands of the Archipelago. To this antique
Aryan tribe are ascribed the most ancient architectural
monuments of Greece. We are further told that the com-
ing of later tribes pushed forward this Pelasgian outpost
until it overflowed into Italy, while it vanished from Greece
either by destruction or amalgamation. This, however, is
all pure conjecture; it has no historic basis. We know
nothing of the origin, race-character, or degree of culture
of the early inhabitants of Greece, though there can be
little doubt that the Aryans made their way by successive
waves into Greece and Italy.
Before the final Hellenic migration began, the Hellenes
had apparently divided into two distinct sections, well
/
marked in language and character, — the Doric and the
Ionic. A third section, the AEolic, separated at a later
period. It is conjectured that the Dorians continued to
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
77
occupy the highland region, while the Ionians moved
south to the sea-coast of Asia Minor, where they found a
softer climate and gained new habits of life. This con-
jecture seems borne out by their subsequent character and
history. Our first historic trace of the Dorians is in the
highlands of Macedonia. Here they displayed the type of
the hardy mountaineer, which was probably original with
them. From this position, at a later date, they pushed
southward and occupied the Peloponnesus, their historic
home, forcing back the Ionians who had preceded them.
We can recover no historic trace of the primitive Ionians.
They probably made their way into Greece over the islands
of the Archipelago, having long before come into contact
with the Phoenician navigators and gained the germ of the
maritime skill and enterprise which were afterwards to
distinguish them. Spreading themselves over these nu-
merous and fertile islands, they finally entered Attica, the
famous centre of their future civilization. But it is highly
probable that they still held possession of the coast of
Asia Minor, and that what were afterwards described as
colonies were really the original Ionian settlements. Here,
at least, their civilization first budded. Here the Grecian
arts first grew into prominence. Here was the land of the
Homeric song and the scene of the great poet’s life. Hence
came the earliest song-writers, philosophers, and historians
to the rising commercial city of Athens, to gain in its rich
precincts the reward of their genius and to implant that
seed of thought which was afterwards richly to grow and
bloom on Attic soil. That later colonies, Doric, Ionic, and
-ZEolic, settled on the shores of Asia Minor, there is historic
evidence ; but they evidently settled among Greeks, and
found there in a developing condition that literary and
78
THE ARYAN RACE.
artistic culture which was afterwards to gain its highest
expression ou the peninsula of Greece.
As to when and how the Aryans came into Italy we know
absolutely nothing. AVe find them there at the opening of
history, and that is all. The earliest Greek colonies in the
south of Italy met there two peoples, called by them the
Iapygians and the iEnotrians, whom they looked upon as
Pelasgians or as remnants of the most ancient known pop-
ulation of Greece. They were possibly Aryans, but of this
we cannot be sure ; the extant relics of their language are
too slight to be of much utility. Central Italy was occu-
pied by numerous tribes, which have been divided into five
groups,—the Umbrians, Sabines, Latins, Volscians, and
Oscans. There is good reason to believe that these were
all of Aryan stock. The Umbrians have left an important
linguistic record in the celebrated inscriptions known as
the “ Eugubine Tablets,” which indicate a very primitive
Aryan dialect and stamp the Umbrians as one of the most
ancient Aryan nations of Italy. As for the remainder of
Italy, the North was occupied by several distinct peoples,
prominent among them being the strong Celtic settlement
known as Cisalpine Gaul. Southward lay the land of
Etruria, occupied by the remarkable people who rose into
the earliest Italian civilization, but whose ethnic affinities
are still a puzzle. AYhether they were or were not Aryans
is a question that remains to be settled. All we positively
know is that ancient authors represent them as a people
wholly distinct from all others in Italy. As for the Latins,
the race that was subsequently to make such a remarkable
figure in the world, and so greatly to advance the Aryan
civilization, their origin is in great obscurity. Their earli-
est traceable home seems to be the central Apennines, and
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
79
their language has a considerable infusion of the old Greek
element, which indicates a very ancient branching off from
the original stock of Greco-Italic speech.
We have one remaining Aryan migration to trace, —the
Indo-Iranic, that which carried the fathers of the Hindu
and Persian empires to their temporary Bactrian home.
This branch of the Aryan stock, in our scheme of the
ancient home of the race, would have its location in the
southeastern Caucasian region, impinging on the southern
shores of the Caspian. Here, like their neighbors to the
west, they seem to have largely lost the distinctive Xan-
thochroic type, and to have been greatly modified by an
infusion of the Melanochroic element. Their migration
may have been considerably later than that of the Greeks.
Quite possibly, indeed, an Iranian pressure may have insti-
gated the Grecian movement, if we may judge from the fact
that Armenia is to-day occupied by an Aryan people who
speak an Iranic dialect. As for the march of this branch of
the race, we have no more historic evidence than in the case
of the other branches. All we can discover is an extended
line of Aryan peoples, leading from the Ossetes, who occupy
the pass of the Caucasus, successively to the Armenians,
the Kurds, the people of ancient Media and Persia, the
Afghan and Belooch Aryan tribes, and the Hindus of the
Indus and Ganges. At every point on the long line of
march divisions of the migrating army were seemingly
dropped, or perhaps the expansion of a growing people
pushed its vanguard farther and farther over the eastward
path, on a route probably much easier than that leading
to the civilized regions of the South.
Of all this, however, we have no historic evidence.
Though we are now dealing with a people who possess
80
THE ARYAN RACE.
a considerable literature, dating from a period when their
migratory movement was yet far from completion, yet this
literature is the reverse of historical. It is simply calcu-
lated to bewilder and lead astray the earnest students of
history. The Vedas of the Hindus, indeed, make no pre-
tence to be historical. The Zend-Avesta of the Persians,
while not historical, lays down a geographical scheme,
which forms the sole basis for the selection of Bactria as
the primitive Aryan home. Yet this Avestan geography
is of the most mythical and unsatisfactory character. In
the “ Vendidad ” are enumerated sixteen lands created by
Ahura Mazda. Many attempts have been made to iden-
tify these, and draw historical conclusions from their order
in illustration of the line of Iranian migration. These
efforts have proved signally unsuccessful. Several of the
lands named are clearly mythical, and of only nine can
the location be traced. Yet in naming these the Persian'
author seems to have wandered at random over the map,
without regard to the cardinal points. No conclusion can
be drawn from their order of succession, since they have
no order.
-
This geographical record, however, appears to indicate
the region of ancient Bactria as the point of common resi-
dence of the Hindus and Iranians ere yet they had divided
into two sub-branches and begun their final migration. It
was a land adapted to their needs, with its mountain-slopes,
its tracts of rich soil and fine pasture-land, its abundance
of oxen and horses, its warm summer airs on the north-
west terraces of the Hindu-Kush. But that it formed the
original Aryan home there is not a shred of evidence, while
such an idea is surrounded by insuperable difficulties. In
all probability it was the halting-ground of the vanguard
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
81
of the Aryan march to the East, a land in which they may
have long rested, and where their numbers may have
greatly increased.1 All we really know is that, after prob-
ably a long residence in this locality, during which the
primitive Aryan ideas became much modified, a division
took place. Some claim that this was a religious schism.
Of this we have no evidence other than the strong religious
fervor manifested in their literature, and the diversity of
opinion concerning the gods that appears in the most
ancient documents of the Hindus and Persians. It is as-
sumed that a group of sectaries, under the leadership of
Xarathustra or Zoroaster, broke off from the main stock
and made their way towards the highlands of Iran, retra-
cing, as we assume, their original path, probably long for-
gotten. Here they established themselves, developed the
distinctive Zoroastrian faith, and became the root-bed of
the future great empire of Persia.
There is nothing surprising in such a reverse movement.
The whole of the Aryan population of Bactria seemed to
be in motion, and expanding in all available directions.
The Indie branch was pushing toward the rich plains
of the South, and there was but one path left open
for the Iranic, — that leading to the Persian highlands.
The march of the fathers of the Hindu race can be traced
writh some clearness. They seem to have pushed out from
1 A study of the map of A?yi shows a comparatively short route, by
way of the southern shores qi the Caspian, from the region of the Cau-
casus to that of the Hindi).-I|Insh. It may be conjectured that the
original Aryan migrants were forced to pursue this route by the hostile
resistance to invasion of the -primitive mountaineers of Persia, and that
only after they had greatly increased in numbers and warlike strength in
Bactria were they able to return and to cope with the foes whom they
had avoided in their original march.
6
82
THE ARYAN RACE.
the western borders of Iran and made their way by slow
stages and in successive tribes into the rich, warm, and
moist valley of the Indus, seeking a new home in these
fertile plains. We can almost see them, in the pages of
the Vedas, marching resolutely south, singing their stirring
hymns of praise and invocation to their deities, led by
their priestly chiefs, and calling down the vengeance of
the gods on their enemies, the Dasyns, the u raw-eaters,”
the “ godless,” the “gross feeders on flesh/’ the “ disturbers
of sacrifices,” the “ monsters ” and “ demons ” who dared
resist the arms of the god-sent, the Ary a, the noble and
ruling race.
This movement was in no proper sense a migration. It
was, as we conceive was the case with all the Aryan move-
ments, an expansion caused by increasing numbers and
aided by hostile pressure from the rear. There are no
signs of a march in force, but rather of the movement of
successive tribes, each pushing the preceding one forward,
and the whole slowly gaining possession of the broad re-
gion of the “ five rivers,” and extending to the great plain
of the Ganges. We can trace the line of march in the
Yedic hymns. The earliest ones disclose the Hindu tribes
to the north of the Khyber Pass, in Cabul. The later ones
were written and sung on the banks of the Ganges. Along
the base of the'''Himalayas they pushed, and far down into
that fertile and enervating land, driving the dark-skinned
aborigines everywhere before them into the mountains
and the jungles, and probably, despite 'their religious dis-
taste, mingling their noble blood to* some extent with that
of these despised aborigines.
How long ago this was, can be conjectured with some
degree of probability. The first occupation of the valley
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
83
of the Indus, with its five tributaries, has been estimated,
from what we know of the subsequent history of the
Hindus, to have taken place about 2000 b. c. It could
hardly have been more recent, yet it may have been more
remote. According to the list of Babylonian dynasties
given by Berosus, the western part of Persia was occupied
by Aryans as early as 2500 b. c. All such estimates,
however, must be taken with many grains of allowance.1
As to the physical and mental character of these east-
ern Aryans, something may be said. The Hindu type is
decidedly Melanochroic. The Brahmin of the Ganges is
marked by a high, well-developed forehead, oval face,
horizontal eyes, a projecting nose, slightly thick at its
extremity, but with delicately shaped nostrils, a fair but
readily bronzed skin, and abundant black hair. Farther
south the mixture with the aborigines has been so great
that it is not easy to trace the typical Aryan. In fact
there has never been a Hindu conquest of the southern
half of India. There the Dravidian population still exists
to the number of fifty millions, though all race-purity has
vanished through the abundant mingling of types that has
seemingly taken place. The mentality of the ancient
Hindus was such as we might deduce from this mixture
of blood, one with highly acute powers of reasoning, but
1 This possibility of limiting the era of the Hindu-Tranian movement
within historic times, in connection with the remotely prehistoric char-
acter of the early European movements, is a strong argument against the
Bactrian locality for ancient Arya. No one can be asked to believe that
Aryan enterprise began with difficult and distant migrations, and left
the rich valleys of India, within easy reach, for its latest field of action.
Such a. reversal of the order of nature is inconceivable, and the prob-
ability is that the invasion of India was the final stage in a long-con-
tinued eastward migratory movement.
84
THE ARYAN RACE.
with perhaps the most developed and exuberant imagi-
nation that has ever appeared upon the face of the earth.
The Iranian populations of to-day — the Kurds, the
Armenians, and the Tadjicks of Persia—are marked by
black eyes and brows. The Tadjicks, the purest descend-
ants of the old Persians, are described as of oval face,
broad, high forehead, large eyes, black eyebrows, straight,
prominent nose, large mouth, thin lips, complexion fair
and rosy, hair straight and black, beard and mustache
black and plentiful, and abundant hair over the whole
body. In Afghanistan the pure Aryan type is frequently
found. The Patans, or Afghan soldiers, are commonly
brown like the Iranians, but many of them have red hair
and blue eyes, with a florid complexion. This is particu-
larly the case with the Siali Posh of Kaffiristan, a tribe
which speaks a dialect derived from the Sanscrit. Thus
in the Iranian branch of the eastern Aryans the Xantho-
cliroic character has been much more fully preserved than
with the Hindus. It is possible that the separation of the
combined race may have been due to ethnic rather than to
religious causes. The Iranians are highlanders to-day, and
may always have been so. They may represent the moun-
taineer section of the original migrating horde, and there-
fore the one that had originally least of the Melanochroic
element. Possibly they occupied in Bactria the highland
region, and the Hindus the lower districts. If such were
the case, we should have an additional reason for the Iran-
ian movement towards the Persian highlands, and that of
the Hindus towards the Indian plains. It is a case parallel
to that of the Doric and Ionic peoples of Greece. In
ancient Arya the Dorian and Iranian tribes may have been
mountaineers, the Ionian and Hindu tribes lowlanders, and
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
85
each may have been governed by this original habit in all
subsequent movements. The Persians are distinguished
from the Hindus by characteristics not unlike those sepa-
rating the Dorians from the Ionians. They have the
mental character of mountaineers, are brave, enterprising,
earnest, and truthful, with a strong love of liberty, and
much warlike energy. They lack the highly active imagi-
nation of the Hindus, but have a sound common-sense and
vigor of thought which make them essentially practical in
their religious systems. The Persian myths have had a
profound influence over the practical religious history of
mankind, while the Hindu belief forms the basis of all the
involved figments of metaphysical philosophy.
But one thing more need here be said. Despite their
many differences, there is a remarkable degree of ho-
mogeneity among the early conditions of the several
branches of the Aryans, — alike in language, in religion,
in political and social institutions, and in physical and
mental character. This indicates an original great uni-
formity, a state of stagnant barbarity of long continu-
ance, during which the Aryans greatly extended the
borders of their primitive home without changing in any
important degree their primitive institutions. For the
second stage of progress a breaking-up and widespread
migration were requisite, — contact with alien peoples,
war, life in new lands, ethnic minglings, and all the varied
influences which play upon an actively moving people, but
to which a settled population is not exposed. To this di-
versity of influences, together with the inspiration of the
old civilizations with which the outspreading race came
into contact, we owe the highly developed Aryan enlight-
enment of the present age.
86
THE ARYAN RACE.
Briefly to summarize some of the conclusions of this
chapter, it may be affirmed that the original Aryan migra-
tion had the character of an agricultural outpush similar
to that which exists in Russia to-day. It was the natural
expansion of an increasing race, at first of small, but of
gradually growing enterprise, spreading from a central
region in all directions to which fertility of soil invited.
It was the onward step from farm to farm, with hostile
aggression where this became necessary, the forward
movement occasionally accelerated by a hostile push of
other Aryan tribes from behind. These movements took
place to all parts of the compass except that leading to
the desert regions of Asia, and the whole intermedi-
ate region continued in Aiyan hands. In their advance
through Europe the Aryans have loosed their hold on no
land which they once occupied, except where forced to do
so by the invasions of the Huns and the Turks. In the
East they have left communities in Armenia, Kurdistan,
and other districts on their line of march, while the Aryan
tribe of the Caucasus known as the Iron or Ossetes sig-
nificantly occupies the path by which these southward
movements must have taken place, — the Gorge of Dariel,
the only natural road through the great mountain-chain.
This tribe seems to have been left behind as the rear-guard
of the Aryan army on its march to empire, while the
Caucasus generally has been occupied by alien peoples.
It was only at a later period, when migration and war
had consolidated and given new energy and enterprise to
the Aiyans, that they ventured on bolder movements.
We can perceive the gradual growth of this enterprise and
power of warlike massing in the German tribes, to whom
the immense wealth of Rome offered the strongest incite-
THE ARYAN OUTFLOW.
87
ment to hostile aggression. Yet at no time did they make
movements en masse like those of the nomadic Ilunnish
invaders. While crossing the borders into the Roman
Empire, they held on persistently to their fields and forests
at home.
The Aryan migration was evidently followed by an ex-
tensive intermarriage with the original inhabitants of the
conquered territories. There is no evidence to the con-
trary, except in the case of the settlers in Scandinavia,
who may have felt a strong antipathy to the widely differ-
ent Lapps. Elsewhere, however, they found their new
possessions occupied by tribes of Melanochroic blood, to
whom the Xanthocliroi have never shown any antipathy.
Instead of annihilating or dispossessing these, they appar-
ently simply subjugated them, and later on freely intermar-
ried with them. Only thus can we understand the great
change in physical characteristics of the Celts and Ger-
mans within the last eighteen centuries. In the former
case the conquered must have much exceeded the conquer-
ors in number, to judge from the strongly declared Melan-
ochroic character of the modern Celts. As regards the
Greeks and Latins, the Hindus and Persians, it is quite
piobable, as we have already conjectured, that they had
gained a strong infusion of Melanochroic blood before
their migration. This was undoubtedly largely added to
after reaching their new homes, and particularly so in
the case of the Hindus, who must have been greatly out-
numbered by the aborigines of their conquered territory.
Yet in all these cases the Aryan type of language held
its own persistently, doubtless adopting many words from
the dialects of the conquered races, but vigorously main-
taining its structure, and forcing out all the aboriginal
88
THE ARYAN RACE.
tongues. This indicates that the aborigines were in every
instance subordinated to the conquerors, who retained
their ascendency firmly during the subsequent period of
amalgamation. Of variations of linguistic structure the
most marked were those which took place in the Celtic dia-
lects, which seem to have had impressed upon them some
of the characteristics of the aboriginal tongues, yet not
sufficiently so greatly to affect their Aryan type.
IV.
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
HAT can we know about the mode of life of a
group of barbarians who have become extinct as
a primitive community without leaving a trace of their ex-
istence upon the face of the earth, who have written no
books, carved no monuments, built no great works of
architecture? The early Chinese and Egyptians, prob-
ably their contemporaries, have left abundant monuments,
— written, carved, erected, and excavated ; but the Aryans
ate, drank, fought, lived, and died without a thought that
the world to come might be curious about their doings,
and without an effort to stamp in stone, brick, or earth the
story of their existence. They had not yet reached that
stage of development in which men begin to think they are
doing great things and living great lives, and become
anxious to astonish the future world with a knowledge of
their prowess. This wish to astound posterity is a feature
of one stage of every advancing civilization. Primitive
barbarism troubles itself but little about the curiosity of
the future. High civilization is more concerned in work-
ing for the needs of the present. But the intermediate
stage of budding civilization has always wasted its strength
in building great tombs, pyramids, temples, and the like,
as monuments of its greatness, toiling with the strength
and blindness of the Cyclops to leave a message of empty
wonder for the world to come.
90
THE ARYAN RACE.
The antique Aryans had not reached this stage of devel-
opment. And yet they have, withont knowledge or in-
tention, left a record of their lives and institutions hut
little less complete than that of their fame-seeking civilized
contemporaries. The political relations of the modern
world are the growth of the seed which they planted. The
religions of the mythological age were the unfoldment of
their germ of faith and worship. The languages of mod-
ern times are full of words which this antique group spoke
in their primeval homes. All these lines of development
have become great trees; but they can be traced back to
their roots, and in these roots we possess the life-conditions
of our ancestral clan.
As we have already said, all the languages of modern
Europe, the English, the Romanic, the German, the Celtic,
the Slavonic, and the Lithuanian ; those of ancient Europe,
the Greek, the Latin, the Teutonic; those of southern
Asia, the Sanscrit, the Persian, and their several minor
dialects, — are not alone closely similar in grammatical
structure, in skeletal type, as it were, but also are full of
verbal affinities. Erom Ireland on the west to India on
the east we find words essentially the same used to desig-
nate the same things. Very many such words exist, —
far too many to suppose that these languages could have
gained them by borrowing from one another. And these
words are not the terms employed by civilization to desig-
nate its newly acquired treasures, but they are the names
of things and ideas of simpler and more antique character,
the titles of the possessions and conditions of barbaric
life, for which every nation, if it had no primitive names,
would have been forced in the early stage of its existence
to invent names for itself. The conception, therefore, that
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
(Jl
these common terms were acquired during the process of
national development by borrowing or, like articles of
commerce, by interchange, cannot be entertained for a
moment. But if this explanation be thrown aside as in-
adequate, there remains only that of a common origin.
We are forced, in fact, to believe that all these widely
separated nations are descendants of a single primitive
people who once occupied a single, limited area, from
which they have outspread over the earth, and who spoke
a single and simple language, from which have come the
complex and varied systems of Aryan speech.
We have already sought to trace the origin, the primitive
locality, and the early migrations .of this people. A yet
more interesting inquiry is before us, —that of their mode
of life. What did they know ; how did they live ; what was
the character of their possessions? — such are the queries
which we must now seek to answer. We look back far
into the darkness of the past as into a mist-shrouded val-
ley, and perceive at first only impenetrable gloom. But
finally a ray of light of growing strength makes its way
through the thinning vapor, and by degrees a broad scene
of busy life is revealed to our eyes, — not with much clear-
ness, it is true ; not without wisps of shadow clinging to
and half enveloping its objects ; yet sufliciently clear to
yield a very considerable knowledge of the conditions of
that long-clouded scene of ancient life. This revealing ray
has sprung from several sources, one of the most important
of which is that of comparative philology.
In isolating the words common to the Aryan languages,
it has been necessary to place them in two divisions. One
is of words common to a part only of these languages ; the
other of words common to the whole. The former series
92
-
THE ARYAN RACE.
indicates that certain branches of the Aryan race, after
breaking off from the main stem, again divided after their
special dialect had made considerable progress. Such was
the case with the eastern branch, and thus we may account
for common words in the Indian and Iranian tongues
which do not extend to the other branches of the race.
This special community between the languages of the two
great divisions of the eastern branch is paralleled by sim-
ilar special resemblances in the west, as between the Greek
and Latin. Efforts have been made, in consequence, to
divide the Aryan race up into secondary, or sub-races, the
product of a primary division, each of which sub-races
made considerable progress before a new division took
place. But from these efforts no very satisfactory result
has been achieved. Several unlike schemes have been
proposed, each of which has been contested and denied.
We need, therefore, concern ourselves here only with the
original Aryans, without heed to their assumed but as yet
unproved sub-branches.
The persevering and critical labor of the students of
language has, as we haATe said, isolated numerous words
which must have been in use by the Aiyan family before
its separation, since they are still in use by all, or nearly
all, its descendants. This work has gone so far that we
have now a dictionary of the ancient Aiyan in three stout
octavo volumes.1 And August Sleieher has taken the
trouble to write a short story in this prehistoric language.
It is quite likely, indeed, that the ancestral Aryans would
have had some difficulty in reading it, since it cannot be
supposed that the exact form of any of their words has
been preserved; yet it is curious, as showing the great
1 Fick’s Comparative Dictionary of Indo-Germanic Speech, 1S71—76.
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
93
progress which has been made during a few decades of
persistent study.
Words indicate things and conditions. No people has
ever invented a vocal sound without the purpose of nam-
ing something which they had or knew. It cannot be
supposed, however, that the Aryan words conveyed to the
minds of their early speakers the exact meaning which
they do to ours. The words of our languages have be-
come as full of mental as of physical significance. Philo-
sophical conceptions spread like a network through the
substance of our speech. But we have now to deal with
a people who had not devised a philosophy and had little
conception of mentality. They knew what they saw.
They named what their eyes beheld or their hands encoun-
tered. Their world existed outside them. The vast world
of the mind was as yet scarcely born. Numerous evi-
dences of this might be quoted. The names of the family
relations, for instance, originated in physical conceptions.
The Sanscrit _p?Yar, “ father,” comes from pa, “ to pro-
tect.” The original meaning of bhratar, “ brother,” was
“he who carries or assists.” Svasar, “ sister,” signified
“she who pleases.” Dahitar, “daughter,” is derived
from duh, a root which in Sanscrit means “ to milk.”
The daughter of the primeval household was valued mainly
for her use as a milkmaid. Thus what seem to us the
most primitive of words were really derived from prece-
ding physical terms. As yet no general or abstract con-
ceptions existed. Indeed we may come to far more recent
times without much improvement in this respect. Old
Anglo-Saxon, for instance, is far richer than old Aryan.
Yet if we should seek to converse on philosophy or science
in Anglo-Saxon speech we should soon find ourselves in
94
THE ARYAN RACE.
difficulty. Only by a free use of metaphor, and mental
applications of words which have only a material signifi-
cance, could any progress be made in such a task. It is
very probable, however, that the antique Aryans had long
forgotten the derivation of their words ; they were mere
technical symbols to them as to us. Their language had
been developed probably many long centuries before the
era of their dispersal, and linguistic decay had already set
in. We know far more than they did of the origin of their
words, from our method of isolating the roots of lan-
guage, and reaching down to the deepest-buried seeds of
meaning.
Let us seek to rehabilitate this ancient Aryan community^,
so far as our knowledge of their words enables us to do so.
For this purpose we shall mainly follow Professor Sayce 1 in
his graphic rebuilding of old Arva from the words given in
Fick’s u Comparative Grammar.” If we look far back
through the revealing glass of science we seem to behold
these active aborigines on their native plains engaged in
all the vocations of a simple life. We see them em-
ployed in a twofold duty, — that of pastoral, and that of
agricultural life. Abundant flocks are scattered over their
grassy commons attended by the diligent herdsman. Of
domesticated animals the cow was their most valued pos-
session, as it still is with the pastoral tribes of northern
Asia. But in addition they had the horse, the sheep, the
goat, and the pig. There is nothing to show that the horse
was ridden. If we judge alone from the indications
of language, we must believe that it was, in common with
the ox, used only for drawing. Nor is there anything to
show that the dog was known in other than its wild state.
1 Introduction to the Science of Language. A. H. Sayce.
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
CJ5
And yet the exigencies of pastoral life may have required
the modern use of these animals. To their sheep and
cattle pastures the Aryan herdsmen added the shelter of
stables, sheepcots, and pigsties. Of other domesticated
animals may be mentioned the goose and fowl as proba-
ble, while the bee was undoubtedly one of their valued
possessions, its honey being made into mead, — then
and long afterwards a favorite Aryan beverage. Their
chief ordinary drink, however, was the milk of the cow,
sheep, and goat; and the morning milking scene by the
daughters of the tribe doubtless closely resembled that
still seen on the Asiatic steppes among the pastoral no-
mads of that region.
The community with which we have at present to deal
was not a nomadic one. It had doubtless passed through
that stage of existence ; but at the time in which we behold
it the development of agriculture had tied it to a fixed
locality, and the interests of agriculture were steadily rising
into prominence. There are indications to show that in the
early days of the development of Aryan speech the pastoral
interests were largely in the ascendent. But at the period
immediately preceding the Aryan dispersal, agriculture had
become considerably developed, the tribes were settled in
definitely arranged communities on a fertile region, well
watered and wooded, and farming and herding had become
common industries of the people, without the wide di-
vision between these interests which we now find in the
desert regions of Arabia and Turkestan, with their fertile
ooses alternated with scant}7 pasture regions.
The antique language has abundant indications of such
a primitive supremacy of pastoral interests. The names
for many of the family and tribal relations, for property,
96
THE ARYAN RACE.
trade, etc., for inn, guest, master, and king, were taken
from words that applied to the herd. Dawn signified the
mustering-time of the cows. Evening was the time of
bringing home the herds. In the word “ cow ” itself we have
“ the slow walker; ” in ox, “ the vigorous oue ; ” in dog,
“speed;” in wolf, “destroyer,” etc. All this indicates
that the era of development of the language was an era
when pastoral interests were very prominent in men’s minds.
But evidently at the period of the Aryan dispersion the
interests of agriculture were becoming dominant, and those
of a pastoral life secondary. TVe have warrant for this in
the plentiful survival of common agricultural terms, and in
the word by which the eastern Aryan migrants called them-
selves at their first appearance on the stage of history, —
Aryas in the Vedas, Airyas in the Zend literature, — and
from which their modern title has been derived. This word
comes from a root which signifies “ ploughing.” It grew
eventually to mean “honorable,” or “noble.” The Ar-
yans, not without warrant, considered themselves the
noblest of human races.
If we now turn our mental gaze from the pastures to the
farming lands we see indications of a different mode of
activity. Here the earth is being turned up with a rude
plough drawn by the slow moving ox, or possibly the horse.
There the hay is bemg cut with the sickle. Yonder are
fields of ripe and waving grain of at least two kinds. Just
what grains these were, we cannot be quite sure. One of
them seems to have been barley, — the cereal of cold cli-
mates. The other may have been wheat, though this is
far from certain. These, with a few garden vegetables, are
all we can perceive through our highly imperfect observing-
glass. We can, however, see wheeled vehicles of some
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
97
sort, drawn by yoked oxen, and bringing the harvests from
the field. We can likewise perceive these antique farmers
threshing and winnowing their grain and grinding it in mills.
We have their words for wagon, wheel, and axle, and also
for hammer, anvil, and forge, —? the latter showing that
the smith was an active member of the community.
In the woods around them grew the pine and the birch,
— trees of cold regions ; and probably the beech and the
oak, though this is not positive. As to what fruit-trees they
possessed, we are in doubt; nor are we certain as to their
knowledge of the grape. They appear to have had three
metals, — gold, silver, and bronze. Their possession of
iron, copper, and lead is more doubtful, and there is rea-
son to believe that stone tools were still used. In fact, when
we consider that metals may have been articles of commerce
at an early date, and their names have travelled with them,
the existence of common Aryan names for any metal is not
as sure evidence of its early possession as in the case of
many other articles, and it is possible that their actual ac-
quaintance with metals was very slight. There is reason
to believe, however, that the class of smiths was held in
high honor, and that they sometimes had supernatural
powers attributed to them, as among other barbarian
communities.
The people whose life in the dim depths of time we are
thus observing had left behind them the tent-stage of exist-
ence. They dwelt in houses of wood, with regular doors,
instead of the hole through which the tenants of many
northern habitations crawl. We cannot identify any win-
dow. Straw seems to have been used to thatch the roofs.
It is possible that these houses were but rude huts. They
were combined into villages, whose name still survives in
7
98
THE ARYAN RACE.
the icich or wick now often used as a termination of the
names of towns. There seems also to have been a fortress,
with protecting wall-or rampart.
As for domestic life and comforts, we know that baked
pottery was in common use, formed into vases, jars, pots,
and cups, some with the ends pointed so as to be driven
into the ground. This pottery may have been ornamented
by painting in colors. Vessels of wood and leather were
also probably in use. The hours of relaxation seem to
have been softened by music, derived from some stringed
instrument. The food used appears to have included baked
or roasted meat, and the eaters of raw flesh were looked
upon as utter barbarians. Quails and ducks were eaten,
and a black broth was apparently a principal article of food.
Their meal was baked into bread, and apples may have
been one of their edible fruits. Salt was used as a condi-
ment. Quite likely their diet was considerably more varied
than this, since many names of articles of food may have
died out of use, or been replaced by others in the long
course of time. Of the other household treasures may be
mentioned mcikshi, “ the buzzer,” our common fly. With
him was associated the less desirable flea, while the prowl-
ing mouse made up a trio of domestic pests. The art of
medicine was as yet in embryo, but our ancestral clan was
by no means free from the ravages of disease. Two names
of diseases have survived, — consumption and tetter. As
for cure, the power of charms seems to have been mainly
relied on.
In these households strict monogamy prevailed. There
was but one husband and one wife, and the family rela-
tions were clearly defined. In addition to words for father,
mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, etc., they had sepa-
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
99
rate words for a wife’s sister, syali, and for a brother’s
wife, yaiaras. The father was lord of the household, and
the wrife its mistress ; the subordination of the younger
members of the family to parental authority being far
greater than in our era. The names of these antique
Aryans were composed of two -words, as now. We may
instance Deva ’smta, “ heard by God,” as the title of one
of our extinct ancestors. As for their domestic industries,
they seem to have possessed the arts of sewing and spin-
ning. Wool was shorn and woven, and linen was known,
though probably little used. The art of tanning was prac-
tised, and leather was much used for clothing and other
purposes. Their dress apparently consisted of a tunic,
coat, collar, and sandals, made of leather or of woven
and sewn wool. But if we may judge from what we know
of the early Germaus, Slavs, and Celts, they were not
greatly protected by clothing from the cold.
If now we leave the domestic and industrial conditions
of the Aryans, and seek to follow them in the more stir-
ring details of their active lives, we behold them engaged in
what to them were doubtless nobler pursuits. Here we
perceive our ancestor actively engaged in the chase and
daringly entering into combat with the savage bear and wolf.
Of smaller game he seems to have pursued the hare, beaver,
and badger, and probably the fox. The wild duck was
one of his game-birds, and he knew several other birds,
such as the vulture, raven, starling, and goose. He had the
custom, preserved till a much later period, of divining the
future from the flight of birds, particularly of the falcon.
The serpent was known, and probably both hated and
revered for its deadly and mysterious power. Of his
water-dwelling game we may name the otter and the eel,
100
THE ARYAN RACE.
the crab and the mussel. But his knowledge of fish
must have been very limited if we take language for our
guide.
Changing our field of observation, we behold him boldly
embarking on the waves of the great salt lake which ad-
joined his native land. The name he gave this watery ex-
panse is still preserved in meer, — a word which has been
since applied alike to sea and lake, moor and morass.
Here he launched his boat, guided it by a rudder, and pro-
pelled it by means of oars. His barbaric intellect was not
yet equal to the device of the sail, — or at least he has left
no word to signify that he had learned to spread the broad
sheet to the winds, and by their aid to avoid the laborious
straining of the muscles.
A glance in still another direction shows him to us en-
gaged in what he probably considered the noble pastime
of war. That he was of belligerent disposition we have
every reason to believe, judging from the irascible temper
he has transmitted to his descendants ; and doubtless his
peaceful labors were frequently broken by warlike raids
upon neighboring tribes or by fierce defence of his home
and fields against hostile invaders. In this stirring duty
the axe was apparently his chief weapon; but he fought
also with the club and the sword, while lie wore the helmet
and the buckler for defensive armor. The bow was also
probably one of his implements of offence. With these
weapons the blue-eyed and stout-hearted champion doubt-
less fought sturdily for home and freedom, or for fame
and spoil, doing doughty deeds of valor which may have
roused to noble inspiration the minstrels of his tribe, yet
which have vanished in the night of time and thrown not
a ray of their lustre down to our remote age. As yet
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
101
no Homer had arisen to make imperishable the deeds of
warlike glory.
As for the acquirements of this strong-limbed and active
barbarian, beyond the requisites of industry and war we
know very little. He was acquainted with the decimal
system of numeration, counting by fives and tens, with his
fingers and toes as guides, at least up to a hundred. The
year was divided into lunar months, the moon being to him
the measurer of time. He doubtless had abundant super-
stitions. The evil spirits of night and darkness pursued
and affrighted his shrinking soul. Their symbol to him
was the serpent. Night was the demon, aj-dahaku, the
biting snake. Then was strongly felt the consciousness
of sin, when the gloom of midnight had densely gathered,
and ghosts and witches held high festival in the air. But
with the upspringing of the cheerful sun, and the forth-
flowing of its gleaming rays over the earth’s surface, these
forms of terror shrank cowering to their dens and caves,
and the Aryan stepped forth again in the proud conscious-
ness of strength and valor, fearing nothing living or dead,
and ready to cope with all the forces of the universe.
From such terrors and such deliverance, from the alter-
nation of day and night, of summer and winter, arose
his simple system of religious views. lie worshipped the
objects and the phenomena of Nature, and particularly the
dawn and the other bright powers of the day. The broad
blue sky was his supreme deity, to whom the stars and the
moon were sons and daughters. To these he prayed and ad-
dressed his hymns, —the seeds of the complex mythologies
into which his simple beliefs were destined to unfold. Of
the many gods devised, he probably thought of and prayed
to but one at a time; and supreme over them all was the
102
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THE ARYAN RACE.
mighty cbjaush-pitar, the father of heaven, the guide and
ruler of the universe.
Y\re shall say as little here of his political as of his
religious system, since we must deal with these more fully
in future sections. It will suffice to observe that the
family was the germ of the village comm uni tj’, which was
constituted on the model of the household, and governed
by the vispciti, or head of the clan, or by the clan council.
Over the larger political group ruled an elected chief of the
tribe, who was assisted in his duties by a court or council,
composed of patara9, or fathers of families. The landed
property was held in common, the only individual property
being the house, its court, its goods, and its cattle. The
houses were grouped into villages, but the chief seems to
have had his special residence and domain marked off from
the common property. Each such community formed part
of a larger group,—a township, to use a modern name.
The separate townships were connected by roads, on
which pedlers travelled with their wares. These commu-
nities had their laws, mainly the growth of ancient custom,
for the prevention or punishment of crime. Justice was
ctivci, the path of right. Right was ycius, what one is
bound to. A person accused of crime had to procure
sureties, those who knew him, or members of his clan.
As yet there were only freemen in the community ; the
dire curse of slavery had not arisen. Yet free laborers
seem to have worked for hire. The community was on
its road toward slavery. The system of human bondage
has always made its appearance as an accompaniment of
the growth of industry, the increase of fixed property, and
the recognition of the value of labor as an element of
wealth. Slaves would be useless to hunting tribes, and
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
103
warlike hunters are apt to slaughter or burn their prison-
ers. To pastoral tribes they are of little more value.
Their great use has always been to agriculturists. With
the progress of agriculture prisoners speedily became too
valuable to be slaughtered, and slavery steadily grew in
its proportions, until in the great nations of Greece and
Rome all the labor of the fields was performed by men
of this class, and the noble art of war degenerated into
a great slave-hunting raid. With the growth of commerce
slavery has become again unprofitable, and a sentiment
has been roused against it which promises soon to banish
it from the earth. But the ancient community with whose
history we are now concerned was. as yet at the beginning
of this great cycle which is now approaching its end.
Only freemen existed in its midst.
We need not pursue this inquiry farther. We have
sought to present a graphic picture of a vanished commu-
nity whom we know mainly by our partial knowledge of
the words it used. We have looked, through the lens
of language, upon a primitive society, dwelling in barba-
rian rudeness and brutality, yet slowly advancing toward
civilization, — a vigorous, energetic, strong-bodied, and ac-
tive-minded race, stirring in body and soul, and destined
to play a most important part upon the stage of the world.
That we have given the whole story of their lives, cannot
be affirmed. It was doubtless much richer than we can
learn from our scanty stock of words. And much that
we have said is open to doubt. Very likely many of the
ancient Aryan words have died out of the languages of
the modern nations and been replaced by other terms.
Of those that have survived it is not always easy or possi-
ble to regain the original meaning, and it is quite probable
104
THE ARYAN RACE.
that some of the interpretations adopted are incorrect.
The ancient tribe lived a simple life, thought simple
thoughts, and doubtless gave but a narrow and limited
significance to its words. l"et that the picture we have
presented is on the whole a faithful one there is little rea-
son to doubt. _ And in the annals of mankind there is cer-
tainly nothing more remarkable than this rehabilitation
of an antique community which had vanished ages before
a thought of writing its history existed.
After the separation of the eastern and the western
Aryans both branches advanced in knowledge and in the
arts of life, and new words caiiie into use. We may con-
clude with a brief glance at these new ideas and accom-
plishments as gained by the western branch. There arose
among them extended ideas of family relationship. Words
now came into use to designate the grandfather, the sister-
in-law, and the sister’s son. Terms of affection for old
people arose. There was a similar advance in civil rela-
tions, and the lines of the community were drawn more
closely. The citizen appeared as opposed to the stranger.
A special act became necessary for members of one com-
munity to enter into friendly relations with those of another.
In their industrial relations larger and better boats were
produced. The sea acquired a name, and sea-animals,
such as the lobster, the oyster, and the seal, became known.
New plants and animals received names, —the elm, alder,
hazel, fir, vine, willow, and nettle ; the stag, lynx, hedge-
hog, and tortoise. Some of these were probably known
before, but they had left no names. The duck seems to
have now become domesticated; agriculture greatly im-
proved. Millet, oats, and rye were cultivated. Peas,
beans, and onions became common garden-plants. Terms
THE ARYANS AT HOME.
105
for sowing, harrowing, and harvesting came into use.
Yeast was used in bread-making. Glue and pitch be-
came known ; leather-work improved ; the stock of tools
increased; hammers, knives, shields, and spears were
employed.
Yet withall these steps of progress the Aryans continued
barbarians of no high grade. Manners were still rude,
life coarse and hard, domestic relations harsh and oppres-
sive, war bloody and brutal. The custom of tattooing
and of painting their partly naked bodies with the blue
dye of the woad-plant may have been common. They
were yet rude barbarians, who had made scarce a step
toward civilization. Such was probably the condition of
the western Aryans when their later divisions took place
and the existing peoples of Europe entered upon the his-
torical path of their national development.
V.
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
IT is our task now to review, so far as it can be traced,
the general organization of the primitive Aryans,
social, political, and religious. Our knowledge of the
existence of this people has been gained mainly by the
aid of language. But later research has opened several
new lines of investigation, and taught us far more of the
Aryan organization than that relating to its industries,
habits, and possessions. Not only common words exist
in all the branches of the Aryan race, but also common
institutions, ideas, and beliefs; and by a co-ordination of
these latter we are enabled to gaze deeply, through the
shadows of time, into the very heart of that long-vanished
community.
Not to go too far back into the origin of human institu-
tions, modern research has made it plainly apparent that
the germ of all existing social and political organization
is the family. The domestic group appears everywhere as
the seed of civilization, as it yet constitutes the unit mass
of its organization. There is, it is true, another vital ele-
ment in political development: but its influence has been
of later date, and the family appears as the first clearly
defined stage of condensation in the long upward progress
of man from his very rude archaic condition. As to the
gradual development of the family through its varied
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE. 107
phases, embracing those of polygamy and polyandry, and
monogamy with descent in the female line, to its final
stage, with paternal headship and descent in the male line,
the reader must be referred to works on that special sub-
ject such as those of L. H. Morgan and McLennan. It is
sufficient for our present purpose to know that the Aryan
family, at its earliest discoverable date, had attained the
last-named stage of development, and as such formed
the definitely constituted unit of the Aryan industrial and
political organization.
Passing beyond the savage to the barbaric state of
human development, we find the latter everywhere based
on the family group. Alike in the agricultural tribes of
ancient Asia and Europe, and in the hunting and agri-
cultural tribes of America, this wras the case. The mo-
nogamous family, composed of husband, wife, and their
descendants, formed the unit of organization and the type
of the clan and the tribal groups. In the pastoral tribes of
Asia and the nations derived from them some degree of
polygamy has always prevailed. Yet the first wife retains
a position of special respect and authority, and monogamy
is the rule with the great mass of the population.
In the early state of all the Aryan branches the family
was organized under conditions of considerable similarity,
— conditions doubtless inherited from ancient Arya. Each
family, indeed, constituted a despotism on a small scale.
The house-father was the head of the domestic group, and
represented it in the community. "Within the house pre-
cincts he possessed the governing power, and the right —
if we may judge from the Roman example — to banish any
member of his household, to sell his sons or daughters into
slavery, to command them to marry whom he would, to
108
THE ARYAN RACE.
seize on all their personal possessions, and to kill them at
his -will. It may be said, however, that some recent writ-
ers question the general absolutism of the Aryan house-
father. It is certain, at all events, that his house was his
castle. No one had the right to enter it without his per-
mission, not even an officer of the law. It was his private
kingdom, and for the acts of the members of the household
he alone stood responsible to the community. The idea
of personal individuality had not yet clearly arisen. The
household was the primitive Aryan individual.
Such was the constitution of the family in ancient Rome,
as declared in the extant Roman laws. The Roman father
had the power of life or death over his children, and could
banish them, sell them, or slay them at his will, and no
man had the right to interfere. All the acquisitions of the
son, all legacies left him, and the benefit from all contracts
he made, were at the father’s discretion ; while he was
bound to marry at his father’s command. In the house-
hold the gradation of rank passed downward from father
successively to mother, to sons, to daughters, to depend-
ants, and to slaves ; but the father was an absolute tyrant
over all. In Greece the same conditions prevailed. K. O.
Müller tells us that in Sparta the family formed an indi-
visible whole, under the control of one head, who was
privileged from his birth. Cox, the historian, says that
the house of each man was to him what the den is to the
wild beast, into which no living thing ma}T enter except
at the risk of life, but which his mate and offspring are
allowed to share.1 In the Hindu family of to-day this in-
violate character of the household is strictly maintained.
A m}Tstery overlies all its operations, — a remarkable se-
1 Greece, p. 13.
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
109
crecy, which is maintained in the humblest households, and
is probably a survival of a very ancient system of family
isolation. With the Celts and the early Greeks there
existed the right to expose or sell their children. This
had become obsolete among the Teutons, though the right
was recognized in case of necessity. With the Russians
the power of the house-father, says Mr. Dixon, is with-
out any check. He arranges the marriage of his son,
makes the son’s wife a servant, and stands above all law
in his own house. His cabin is not only a castle but a
church, and every act of his done within that cabin is
supposed to be not only private but divine.1
Over one point alone the authority of the house-father
was not absolute. He could do what he would with the
movable property of the household and the labor of its
inmates, but he could not sell or encumber the landed
property. This was not individual, but corporate wealth.
It belonged to the family as a whole, and was held invio-
lable. This was the law in all Aryan regions, from India
to Ireland, with the possible exception of Rome, whose
ancient laws relating to such matters are lost.
The heir to the family headship was usually the eldest
son, though by no means always so. In Wales and in
some other districts this office seems to have descended
1 According to Wallace, this is rather the old theory than the modern
practice. He remarks that “the relations between the head of the
household and the .other members depended on custom and personal
character, and consequently varied greatly in different families. If the
Big One was intelligent, of decided, energetic character, there was proba-
bly perfect discipline in the house. If not well fitted for his post, there
might be endless quarrel lings and bickerings.” But there is every reason
to believe that in earlier times the patriarchal power was absolute.
“Russia,” p. 88.
no
THE ARYAN RACE.
to the youngest son ; and this is yet the rule among some
of the southern Slavs. In default of a male heir one
might be received by adoption.1 The adopted son left his
own household and became a full member of the new one,
changing his tutelar spirits for those of his new family.
The principle of adoption, indeed, was sometimes so ex-
tended in the clan as to make the claim of common descent
extremely mythical. The whole Aryan system rested upon
marriage and the birth of a male heir, who became eventu-
ally the head of the household, the system of family
government being the type of the public organization.
The ties of blood were scrupulously respected, and mar-
riage among blood-relations forbidden to a greater extent
than to-day. The wife became in every respect a member
of the family group into which she entered, changed her
household gods, and lost all obligations of duty to her
former family, replacing them by hew ties.
Such was the Aryan family, the antique political group
from which outgrew the later clan organization of Arya.
ITow it arose, with its peculiar feature of absolute domina-
tion of the head of the household, is not very clear. No
such absolutism exists in the family group of the Ameri-
can Indians, which otherwise bears a very interesting re-
semblance to that of the Aryans, and Cox and Ï learn trace it
to a religious origin, — a duty resting upon the house-father,
as representative of the departed ancestors, to pay due
worship to their spirits and to manage the inheritance left
him under responsibility only to these ancestral spirits.
1 Under certain conditions the wife succeeded to the family govern-
ment and care of the property, sometimes during the minority of the
male children, sometimes during life if there were no direct male descend-
ants. Maine’s “ Village Communities,” p. 51.
THE HOUSEHOLD AND the village.
Ill
This subject will be dealt with in the next section; and
it will suflice to say. here that the family group was appar-
ently not limited to the living members, but included the
dead ones as well, to whom sacrifice was offered, —perhaps
as their share of the family food and wealth.1
Jn this religious duty we find a powerful check to the
absolutism of the house-father. He represented the de-
parted ancestors, and was answerable to them for a proper
discharge of his duty. For any wrongful act he was liable
to the vengeance of these powerful spirits, and might be
exposed to dreadful calamities or become an accursed felon
to the gods. It may here be said also that the power of
public opinion was by no means absent from these ancient
communities, and that it doubtless exercised a salutary
influence over the acts of the domestic despot. The house-
father was not expected to act by caprice, but to call a
council of the family and of its near relatives to decide
upon important matters ; and very likely he was ordinarily
governed by their decision. In this respect the family
was the prototype of the clan.
Ancient as is the period to which we here allude, and vital
as arc the changes which have since taken place, the antique
Aryan family, as a distinct political and industrial group,
has not yet died out. It still exists in India and among
the southern Slavonians, —the least progressed, politically,
of the Aryan peoples. In India, in addition to the village
communities, which form the ordinary industrial group, there
exists a group known in Hindu law .as the Join! Undivided
1 The most dignified of the Indian courts has recently laid it down,
after nn elaborate examination of all the authorities, that “the right of
inheritance, according to Hindoo haw, is wholly regulated with reference
to the spiritual benefits to he conferred on the deceased proprietor.” —
Village Communities, p. 53.
112
THE ARYAN RACE.
Family. In this the system of co-ownership is carried to its
fullest extent. It is composed of the members of a single
family, usually including several generations, by whom all
things are held in common, — food, worship, and estate, —
under the control of an elected head. This represents the
primitive socialistic institution. The domain of the family
is cultivated in common, the produce is held in common, and
a common hearth and common meals are preserved through
several generations. Significantly, in a region far to the
west of this a closely similar institution survives. Among
the southern Slavonians, in Croatia, Servia, and Dalmatia,
the House Community is an ordinary institution. Here a
single roof covers the family, which often comprises sev-
eral generations and many individuals. The hearth and
the meal are enjoyed in common, the lands cultivated by
the common labor of the household, and all the produce
held as the common wealth; the whole being controlled by
an elected manager. These associations are not of recent
formation and dissolvable at will, like their Hindu ana-
logues, but have descended from far past time, each fam-
ily continuing its organization, but sending out its surplus
members, when they grow too numerous, to found other
families. We can scarcely doubt that some of these Sla-
vonian family groups have descended without a break from
primitive Aryan times, and that they preserve to us, per-
haps on original Aryan territory, the most antique form of
the Aryan industrial group, which became replaced in
later Arya by the institution of the village, next to be
considered.
It may be here said that the limited duration of the
Indian House Community — which rarely lasts beyond two
generations — is due to the facility of dissolution under the
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
113
-
modern Indian law. Originally it may have been as per-
manent as that of the Slavonic group. An interesting
instance of a similar character, in a non-Aryan Indian tribe,
is that of the Kandh hamlet, described by Dr. Hunter in
his “ Orissa.” This people is still a nomadic one, and its
institutions are strikingly like what those of the Aryans
must have been in their specially pastoral age. The Kandh
hamlet is a household unit in which individual rights are
unknown. The house-father exercises supreme control,
and the maxim is held that “ a man’s father is his god.”
Disobedience is the greatest of crimes. No son can pos-
sess property till the death of his father. Then a division
is made of the land and stock, and each son becomes the
head of a separate family.
The condition of society here reviewed is a highly ar-
chaic one, a survival from a very ancient period of Aryan
existence when it was yet in the nomadic pastoral state.
In its subsequent agricultural phase a different organization
arose ; but vestiges of the more ancient condition, in which
the family was the state, persisted throughout this later
period, and have, in the instances described, continued
unto our own times. It is the patriarchal stage of political
development, the stage which still persists generally among
nomads, and which has played a remarkable part in the
history of civilization, as we shall hereafter point out.
The nomadic tribes of northern Asia and of the desert of
Arabia are }Tet in this stage of organization. The princi-
ple of a single, supreme house-father has been there ex-
panded into the head of the clan, the chief of the tribe, the
ruler of the nation, through a direct process of develop-
ment which has been modified by no secondary principle.
. The only Aryan people in which this archaic system has to
8
114
THE ARYAN RACE.
any extent held its own in clan-government are the High-
landers of Scotland under their recent S3Tstem of chieftain-
ship. The Highland clan was a distinctively patriarchal
organization, sustained by a people largely pastoral, and
to some extent nomadic in habit. It was an expanded
family group, in which the chief was the direct representa-
tive of the original ancestor, and was looked upon with a
partly superstitious reverence by his ignorant and faithful
followers. It seems to indicate a reversion to archaic
political conditions.
In ancient Arya — probably when agriculture had begun
to tie the former nomads to fixed locations, and to bring
new interests into the foreground of men’s thoughts — a
new principle of organization gradually declared itself, a
highly interesting outgrowth from the more ancient pa-
triarchal system. This was the system of the Village
Community, one of the most important stages in the de-
velopment of human institutions. It must be borne in
mind that with the acquirement of property iu land indus-
trial relations assumed a very different phase from that
governing property in flocks and herds. In all these,
ancient cases the idea of community in property was firmly
established. The common property of the family expanded
into the common property of the clan, which was }ret re-
garded as a single famity, of common descent and common
name. However greatly foreign elements came in, through
adoption or otherwise, this fiction was maintained, and in
several localities has not yet died out. There was no diffi-
culty in sustaining this idea of community in the case of
pastoral property. The herds were under the care of the
whole group, and there was nothing to call for individual-
ism in labor. And though they were held for the good
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE. 115
of all, the patriarchal head of the group claimed certain
supreme rights of ownership and management, and certain
controlling powers over the clansmen, which were but a
development of the original supremacy of the house-father.
An interesting instance of such an organization is that
of the patriarch Abraham and his followers and flocks as
given in the Scriptures.
This generalism of duties could not so well be exercised
in agricultural labor. Such labor could not properly be
performed in common, and it became necessary to break
up the tilled land into separate lots, each to be cultivated
by a single family. This was attended or followed by the
ownership of the product of its own lot by each family,
although the land as a whole continued to be the property
of the community. Instances of the growth of this s}ts-
tem may be found in American institutions. In the Inca
empire of Peru the system of agriculture and government
continued patriarchial in great part. The population as a
whole cultivated the lands of the Inca and the Church ; the
products, though held in part for the good of the people,
being under the supreme control of the ruler. But the
remainder of the lands, those specially appertaining to the
people, were divided into separate lots, each cultivated for
its own use by a single family. In the Aztec empire of
Mexico the supremacy of the Montezumas was much less
absolute. The lands were partly claimed by the Throne
and the Church; but the work on these lands was done by
dependants, not by the people as a whole. The remaining
lands belonged to the separate cities or districts, and were
divided among the people. But a part of all produce
went into the public storehouses, and was under the con-
trol of the government. Among the partly civilized tribes
116
THE ARYAN RACE.
of the southern United States — the Creek confederacy
and the adjoining tribes — all the land was the property of
the people, and was divided into separate lots, apportioned
to the separate families, though some degree of individual
ownership was also exercised. But a portion of all pro-
duce, alike of agriculture and of hunting, was obliged to
be placed in certain public storehouses for the use of the
people in case of necessity. These public stores -were
under the supreme control of the mico, or village head-
man, in whom we have a close representative of the similar
officer in Aryan communities, though the mico had besides
an important spiritual authority.
Coming now to the Aryan organization, we discover the
final stage in this gradual separation of interests. Here
also the land as a whole is the property of the community;
but it is divided among the families for their separate
use, and all trace of community in its produce is lost.
The wise system of public storehouses of the Indian village
does not exist, and the product of each separate field is
the sole property of the family cultivating it, to be dis-
posed of without supervisal. Thus in these several peo-
ples every stage of growth, from the pastoral complete
community in cattle to the Aryan partial community in
land, can be traced.
It is to this separation of interests in the common prop-
erty that we must look for the origin of that peculiar
clan-organization which is, in nearly a complete sense, a
special characteristic of the Aryan people. In this organi-
zation the individuality of the family persisted. There was
no merging of the smaller into a larger patriarchal family
group. Each household became an equal unit of the vil-
lage group, with equal rights in the common property, and
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
117
with an equal voice in the decision of all questions relating
to the general interests. The head of each family was a
full member of the community, and the government was in
the hands of these freemen, organized into a council. So
far as we can discern, this was the archaic condition of
the village community. The tendency to continue the patri-
archal organization had been checked by the division of in-
terests, and the separate yet equal rights of every freeman
in the common property. The principal questions necessary
to decide related to industrial affairs, and in the disposal
of these every house-father had acquired an equal right.
Yet the patriarchal tendency was checked, not killed.
Old ideas have a persistent vitality in barbarian commu-
nities. The members of each village viewed themselves
as kindred, descendants of a common ancestor, and in
each village there were certain families which were regarded
as more directly in the line of descent from the ancient
ancestor. A certain gradation of rank existed, dependent
on honor, not on privilege ; and when it became necessary
to choose a leader in war, or to elect some umpire in vil-
lage disputes, the choice most naturally fell on those
deemed to have a hereditary claim to authority. The offices
of chieftain and of village head-man thus arose. The vil-
lage was constituted on the type of the family. In the
latter a council was called to decide important affairs, and
in certain cases to elect a family head. It was the same
with the village. The council of freemen held the rights
of decision and of election ; but in both family and village
the choice usually fell on those having the best claim of
hereditary right, and the election often became a mere ac-
clamation in favor of the person recognized as the natural
chieftain.
118
THE ARYAN RACE.
All this is not mere conjecture. There is abundant
historical evidence of the organization of the ancient Ar-
yans. It was evidently at once a communistic and a highly
democratic society. In its latter characteristic it was
markedly different from the patriarchal society, which was
aristocratic in tendency, and which naturally tended to
despotism ; while in all Aryan communities the ancient
claim of equality of rights and privileges has had persist-
ent vitality, even under grinding despotisms. All modern
democratic governments are direct outgrowths of the an-
cient organization of the Aryan village, while the despot-
isms of Asia are as direct resultants of the patriarchal
system.
One statement more is necessary in regard to the division
of property in ancient Arya ere we adduce the historical
testimony. Each village claimed the right of eminent
domain over a landed district of definite extent. But in
the management of this landed property there were three
separate interests to be considered, — the pastoral, the agri-
cultural, and the domestic. It is interesting to observe the
disposition of these. The pastoral interests retained their
old generalism. The pasture-lands were held in common,
for the feeding of the flocks of the villagers. The arable
lands, on the contrary, were equally divided among the
several families for cultivation. But, as if to prevent any
claim to individual ownership, these lands were periodi-
cally redistributed. This system of redistribution is still
maintained in Russia. Finally, the village plot was di-
vided into house-lots, which were the absolute domains of
their proprietors. Each family held separate ownership in
its house and the plot of ground surrounding, and perhaps
partly for that reason jealously guarded it. Each man’s
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE. 119
house was liis stronghold; it was the only spot of earth
in which he could claim individual ownership ; and every
man who attempted to intrude on it without his permission
was an enemy whom he might repel as he would his dead-
liest foe. Possibly this may have had something to do with
the growth of that isolation of the household which became
so strongly developed in all Aryan communities.
If now we come to look for the historical evidences of this
assumed industrial and social status of the ancient Aryans,
it is remarkable, considering the numerous and radical
changes in human institutions since the opening of the
historic period, what clear traces of it remain. We have
already described the extant relics of a yet older Aryan
condition, — that of the patriarchal family. The clan sys-
tem has been equally persistent, and exists with little change
in Russia and India to-day, while historic traces of it can be
found in every other Aryan communit}7, with the exception
of that of Persia; and even in Persia the ancient demo-
cratic organization of the people can be clearly traced.
There is considerable evidence that the ancient Hellenes
and Romans were organized in village clans, with common
landed property. Morgan says that the Athenian gens,
or clan, in some cases, at least, held property in common.
Thucydides speaks of such communities as independent
systems of local government, and there was seemingly a
period in which there was no city of Athens, but many
village communities in Attica. The Roman gens was sim-
ilarly in possession of common lands, of a common clan-
name, and of common religious rites, burial-place, etc.
Mommsen describes “ village communities by the Tiber,”
out of which Rome arose. There is no doubt of the exist-
ence of such clan villages. The hills of Rome and the
120
THE ARYAN RACE.
Acropolis of Athens formed originally centres of refuge
for the villagers in periods of invasion, and it is supposed
that in such hill forts we have the germ of many of the
ancient cities. The modern city of Calcutta had its origin
in an aggregation of several separate village communities.
The Celtic Aryans present similar indications. The
sense of kinship is deeply stamped on the Brehon laws of
ancient Ireland, and the Irish sept probably repeated the
joint family or the village clan of the Hindus. Private
ownership in land was common at the earliest historic
period, yet the rights of private owners were limited by the
communal rights of a brotherhood of kinsmen. Apparently
the original right to cultivate a fixed plot was then growing
into a claim of private ownership in that plot, as became
the case elsewhere. The power of the lord of the manor
over the communal lands was also beginning to show itself.
The fine or sept bore the name of its supposed ancestor,
and its territory also bore his name, — a condition which
has not yet died out. As elsewhere, the sept received
strangers by adoption; but this did not destroy the fiction
of kinship.
In Scotland the village community was a much more
persistent institution. It left its marks as late as the time
of Sir 'Walter Scott, who discovered traces of such an
institution in the islands of Orkney and Shetland. Very
recently, in the Lowlands of Scotland, in the borough of
Lauder, a condition of affairs has been discovered closely
analogous to the antique village community system.1 Sir
Henry Maine has also traced in France an indication of a
like condition of affairs, despite the violent revolutions to
which that country has been subjected.
1 Maine’s Village Communities, p. 95.
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
121
The facts relating to the Teutonic village communities,
as traced by Von Maurer in his valuable series of works on
the subject, and of vestiges of the same institution in Eng-
land, as shown by Nasse, may be here epitomized. The
ancient Teutonic agricultural group consisted of a number
of families holding a certain well-defined tract of land.
This tract was divided into three portions, known as the
mark of the township or village, the common mark, or
waste land, and the arable mark, or cultivated area. These
three sections were held under very different conditions.
The waste was the common property of the community,
held for purposes of pasturage, for gathering fire-wood, and
the like. It was the analogue of the old pastoral domain.1
The village section was divided into house and garden
plots, each the sole property of the family occupying it.
No one, not even the officers of the law, had the right to
intrude upon the family domain. There the house-father
was absolute lord. The arable mark seems in almost
every case to have been divided into three great fields,
only two of which were cultivated in any one year, the third
lying fallow. But tillage was not in common. Each house-
1 The waste formed the line of demarcation between different com-
munities,— the wooded region of the hunter, the hostile border-land
which the foot of the invader müst traverse. We have survivals of the
word which designated it in Denmark, or the Danes’ Mark ; in the
March or battle-border between England and Wales ; and in the marquis
or markgraf, the guardian of the mark. The waste mark was also the
seat of exchange of products between villages, the region of the market.
The forest of the waste was the temple of the Teutons, the home of the
unknown and uncanny, of ghost and goblin. It was the least-known and
most-dreaded of their dominions. Here dwelt Odin, the god of the
mark, the spirit of the tree and the forest breath, the god of the wind
and the tempest. Within the village domain dwelt order and peace ;
there man was master. But in the waste land beyond, terror was lord,
and the supernatural held high carnival.
122
THE ARYAN RACE.
holder had his family lot in each of the three fields, which
he tilled by his own labor and that of the members of his
family, while he had absolute rights in the disposal of its
produce. But he could not cultivate as he pleased. He
must sow the same crop as the rest of the community, and
observe fixed rules as to modes and times of cultivation.
Nor could he interfere with the rights of other families to
sheep and cattle pasturage in the fallow lands, or in the
cultivated lands after the harvest. The rules of custom
governing the common interests were very intricate, and
extended to minute details. Many of them had come
down from very ancient times, while others were formed as
new questions arose. There was little difficulty in enforc-
ing them ; they had almost the force of sacred laws. The
main evidence of gradual change we can discover is that
from the antique periodical redistribution of family lots to
the continued cultivation of a single lot, and finally to the
restrictive ownership of this lot.
As to ancient evidences of this condition, we may quote
from Caesar, in his description of the Suevi (Swabians) :
“ They have no private and separate fields,” and “none
have fixed fields and private boundaries, but the magistrates
and princes in assembly annually divide the ground in
proportion and in place among the people, changing the
arable land every year.” 1 Tacitus gives testimony to the
same effect, saying that the lands were held by the farmers
in common, and the fields occupied in rotation. “They
change their tillage land annually, and let much lie fal-
low. . . . They do not hedge their meadows, nor water
their gardens, and they cultivate only com.” 2
1 De Bello Gallico, iv. 1, and vi. 22.
2 Germania, 25-26.
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
123
-
It is a striking evidence of the conservative persistency
of institutions among agriculturists to find that similar
conditions exist to-day in middle and south Germany,
with but slight modifications. The main change is that
communism in the arable lands has ceased, and the fields
of the peasants are held in private ownership. The valu-
able work on Germany by Baring-Gould gives some in-
teresting information and suggestions on this point. He
makes it clearly evident that the customs of the Aryans
changed in accordance with the variation in the character of
their soil. "Where the land was poor, as in northern Ger-
many, it was incapable of supporting a dense population,
and such regions became active centres of migration. The
seeming general migrations were in reality only partial, and
mainly consisted of the swarms of elder sons whom the
paternal estates could not support. In such cases but one
son remained under the paternal roof, perhaps in some
cases the eldest, but oftener the youngest, — from which may
have arisen the custom in some localities of inheritance by
the youngest, as already mentioned. Such was probably
the origin of the frequent invading movements of the Sax-
ons, Angles, Franks, etc. Room for the surplus population
was needed, and the}r obtained it by conquering a new
home, or died by the swords of the invaded people. It
was a system of the survival of the strongest which served
to settle the Malthusian difficulty during long ages of
human history.
In southern and middle Germany, where the land is
richer, the communal conditions more fully prevailed. In
the North the farm developed, descending to one son as
the heir, — a condition which still prevails in that locality.
In the South the village persisted, with its common lands.
124
THE ARYAN RACE.
This system was nearly universal among the Franks, Ale-
manni, and Swabians, and survives unchanged in some
places. Thus at Gersbacli, in the Baden Schwarzwald,
all the tillage land is held in common and is periodically
redistributed. In the Altmark all the land is common,
and the agricultural work to be done the next day is de-
cided every evening by the heads of households. Similar
conditions exist in other places. The three-field system is
yet universal in this region, and in numerous cases the
pasture and forest land is still held in common. The Ge-
tucmnen, the village arable fields, consist of somewhat nar-
row strips, divided from each other by footpaths. These
are subdivided into still narrower family strips, marked off
by trenches or stones. They are usually rectangular, often
not more than seven yards wide, and in extreme cases
reduced to three or even one yard in width. In such cases
they are longer in proportion to their narrowness. These
fields are divided into the Felcl, the Flur, and the Zelg, the
winter, summer, and fallow field, in accordance with imme-
morial custom. The lots of peasant proprietors are thus
divided into narrow strips scattered all over the parish,
such a thing as a compact farm being very rare. Of recent
years, however, efforts have been made by the Governments
to end this state of affairs and redistribute the land so as
to bring each peasant’s holdings together. The indications
are that ere long the old and inconvenient system will
vanish under the force of modern ideas and governmental
initiative.
That the soil of England was originally divided in a
similar manner by its Saxon conquerors we have abundant
evidence in the many traces of communistic agriculture
which still exist. Fields known as “ common fields” may
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
125
yet be found in many of the English counties. These
fields are nearly always divided into three long strips like
the German Gewannen, separated by green baulks of turf.
The separate farms consist of subdivisions of these strips,
often very minute. There is evidence to show that the
same owner once held a share in each strip, and that these
shares were equal, or nearly so, though now many of them
may be accumulated in single hands. The methods of
agriculture closely reproduce those of old. One strip is
left fallow, while unlike crops are cultivated in the other
twro strips. The right of common pasturage for the cattle
of the farmers often exists ; and the shares in the arable
lands in rare cases shift owners annually, as in old Arya.
This is frequently the rule with the meadows, rights in
which are often redistributed annually by casting lots.1
In addition to these arable fields there are in many parts
of England open or common fields, sometimes comprising
more than half the area of certain counties. Mr. William
Marshall, in his “ Treatise on Landed Property,” estimates
that a few centuries ago nearly the whole of the lands of
England lay in this open state, and formed the common
property of cultivators. They seem to have been divided
into arable and waste or pasture lands on a principle
closely related to that of the Teutonic village. Similar
conditions yet exist in Lowland Scotland, as in the borough
of Lauder, already cited.
This persistence of the communistic village organization
in England, after all the wars and revolutions in that land,
shows a peculiar vitality in the ancient Aryan system of
property holding. Significantly similar institutions were
established in America, the yeoman settlers of New Eng-
1 Maine, Village Communities, pp. 78 to 89.
126
THE ARYAN RACE.
land dividing their new soil on the principle to which
they had been accustomed at home. These American vil-
lage communities, however, never took a deep hold on the
soil. The flood of new emigrants soon drowned them out
of existence.
In two Aryan lands, India and Russia, the village com-
munity has been rigidty persistent, and exists at the pres-
ent day in a form not widety different from that which
must have prevailed in ancient Aiya. Only among the
Hindus and the Slavonians does the archaic house com-
munity persist, while they everywhere maintain the village
system. The Indian village closely repeats the Teutonic,
as above described. There is the arable domain, divided
among the families, yet cultivated under minute laws of
custom. "Where grass-crops can be raised, the meadows
persist, on the verge of the cultivated ground. Outside
appears the waste, the undivided pasture-ground of the
villagers. Centrally lies the village, with its individual
family plots and its strictty isolated households. And all
is under the control of an elected headman or a village
council which decides all questions. Two ancient ideas
have died out, however. The periodical redistribution has
disappeared, except as a tradition, and the villagers do not
consider themselves kinsmen. Perhaps the abundant infu-
sion of foreign blood has killed out this old conception.
The old system of government by an assembly of adult
males, as found in the ancient Teutonic community, has
partly vanished in India. In many cases the affairs of the
community are managed by a council of village elders,
but more generally this council is replaced by a head-
man,— a feature of later origin. This office is sometimes
hereditary, sometimes elective ; though in the latter case
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
127
usually confined to a particular famity, and generally to
the eldest male of that family.
The Indian villages are not solely cultivating communi-
ties. Manufacturing interests are also included. There
are families of hereditary artisans, as the blacksmith, the
shoemaker, etc. There is a village accountant, a village
police, and other necessary officers. But these persons
are included in the communistic system, and are paid
by an allowance of grain or a piece of cultivated land.
All their wares have a price, fixed by usage, and to
bargain with a Hindu tradesman for his goods is to insult
him.
In central and southern India are certain villages to
which is attached a class of persons who form no actual
part of the community. These persons are looked upon as
impure. Their touch is contaminating. They are not per-
mitted to enter the village, or only a reserved part of it.
Yet they have definite duties, one of which is the settle-
ment of boundaries. They probably are descendants of
the aboriginal population. Still, despite the rigid exclu-
sion of these “ outsiders,” there can be no question that
the alien population largely made its way into the village
in past times, as is shown by the evident great mixture
of race-characters in India, and by the loss of the idea
of kindred in the village groups. In the Russian commu-
nity this is avoided by the ease of swarming to new lands.
But in densely peopled India the contest between the group
of kindred and the alien class for a share in the land must
have been severe and persistent, and to it is probably due
the conditions we now find.
Of all modern Aryan nations, however, Russia is the
one that has deviated least from the ancient customs, and
128
THE ARYAN RACE.
in the Russian mir we have the closest analogue of the
antique Aryan village. This is in accordance with the view
we have taken of Russia as the Aryan branch that has re-
mained nearest to or yet occupies the primitive home of
the race, and that has been least exposed to disturbing
influences. Yet the unwarlike character of the Russian,
as of the Hindu peasantry, and their close confinement to
agricultural duties, have doubtless had much to do with
their strict conservatism. In all lands and in all times the
agriculturist has been the conservative, the citizen the radi-
cal ; while but for the disturbing and destroying influences
of war we might have to-day the most archaic of institu-
tions persisting in their full vigor.
In ^Wallace’s admirable work on Russia is an interest-
ing description of the Russian mir, or village community,
which may be here epitomized. Ivanofka, a village in
northern Russia, is offered as a typical instance of a culti-
vating group. It embraces in its communal bounds about
two thousand acres of a light sandy soil. In the cultiva-
tion of this nearly all the women and about half the males
of the village are habitually engaged. The land is sepa-
rated into three portions, — arable, waste, and village ; the
arable being divided into three large fields, after the imme-
morial Aryan usage. The first field is reserved for the
crop of rye ; the second for oats and buckwheat; while the
third lies fallow, and is used as pasture-ground. This
distribution changes from field to field annually, so as to
make a rude rotation of crops and to give each field rest
one year in three. The fields are cut into long, narrow
strips, of which each family possesses, according to its
needs, one or more in each lot. Many of the villagers are
artisans, and live in the towns. Yet they cannot leave the
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE.
129
village without consent of the council, must return to it
when ordered, and must send part of their earnings home
to the village treasury. Otherwise they forfeit their heredi-
tary claims, and break a link of connection with the ances-
tral home and kindred which is dear to the heart of every
true Russian.
The chief person in the mir is the selski starosta, or vil-
lage elder, whose office is elective, and presents no trace of
heredity. The electing body is the selski skhocl, or village
assembly, composed of the adult members of the commu-
nity. This body settles all important affairs. As the
power of the elder here is limited, so is that of the house-
father. He has in recent times lost much of his ancient
absolutism, and no longer rules with unquestioned author-
ity over the adult members of the family. The affairs of
the village are closely regulated by custom. No one can
plough or mow until the assembly has met and passed a
resolution, and no peasant dreams of disputing a decree of
the assembly. These decrees are generally carried by accla-
mation, though there is a counting of heads by the elder
when any diversity of opinion appears. And it ma}' be
said that no one desires the office of elder. It brings with
it trouble and responsibility, with very little compensation.
Efforts are made to avoid the empty honor, though no one
dare dispute the decision of the electors.
In regard to the division of the fields among the house-
holders, the principle of periodical redistribution is yet
extant, and is practised whenever changes in the number
and size of families make it desirable. And the idea of
kinship still persists. The Russian villager believes him-
self allied by blood-ties with the members of his village
group. In the more fertile southern districts each peasant
9
130
THE ARYAN RACE.
strives to obtain all the land he can get, — which is not the
case in the North, where the land-tax renders too large a
farm undesirable. All disputes thence arising are settled
by casting lots. In these districts the meadow-lands are
also divided into household shares ; but this division is
made annually instead of irregular^, as in the case of
arable lands. Occasionally the grass is cut in common,
and then divided. It may be said, in conclusion, that the
meetings of the assembly of the village are very infor-
mal, and discussion is carried on in a free and easy way,
though with considerable shrewdness. 'Wallace gives some
very amusing instances of these debates, — the direct
counterparts, probably, of the methods of government
that prevailed in ancient Arya centuries before history
was born.
The village community, however, while found univer-
sally among the Aryans, cannot be claimed as a peculiar
Aryan institution. It is one of the two forms under which
all ancient agricultural societies seem to have been organ-
ized ; the other being the more archaic patriarchal system.
Village communities have been discovered in Java and
among North African Semitic tribes, while they form the
ordinary t}Tpe of the Indian clan groups of North America.
It has been the custom to speak of the Indian tribes as in
the hunting-stage of development. But the fact is that
they were very largely agricultural. For one evidence of
this the reader may be referred to a paper in the u Amer-
ican Naturalist” of March, 1885. And their land-holding
customs, together with their system of organization, bore
a striking resemblance to those of the Aryans, though with
some features of variance, as will be seen when we come
to treat of their comparative political systems. This much
THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE VILLAGE. 131
may be here said, — the idea of kinship in the clan was
strongly held by the Indian tribes, bnt the isolation and
rigid exclusiveness of the household was not maintained.
The belief that “ every man’s house is his castle,” to be
defended to the death if need be, is peculiarly Aryan. Its
counterpart is found nowhere else in the world.
VI.
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OP ARY AX WORSHIP.
IX the religion of the ancient Aryans is displayed, to a
more marked extent than in that of any other people,
two distinct systems of worship, arising from unlike in-
fluences, and struggling for precedence. This fact is of
importance, as it has had a vital influence on the history
of their descendants, and has done much for the preserva-
tion of their democratic spirit. For of these two systems
the one tended to aristocracy, the other to democracy ; and
in nearly all the ancient Aryan communities the democratic
religious system kept the ascendency.
YTe are apt, indeed, in considering the Aryan religions,
to call up before our mental vision simply the rich picture
of mythology, with its intricate and extraordinary details,
its surprising variety of conceptions, the physical splendor
of its deities and their habitation, and the crowding multi-
tude in which they inhabited earth, air, ocean, and the
over-arching skies. But these marvellous mythical deities
were not the oldest or the most venerated gods of the
Aryans. They grew into great prominence in the early
literary period of Greece and India and of the Teutonic
tribes, and became surrounded with a confusedly complex
series of biographical details, in which the vestiges of their
origin "were lost to their worshippers. But in ancient Arya
the nature gods lacked this complexity of myth and variety
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 133
of forms and attributes, and their true meanings were
plainly apparent. They were as yet the sky, the sun, and
the planets, the winds and the clouds, the summer and the
winter, the dawn and the darkness, and those varied ele-
mental phenomena which are of supernatural significance
to the simple fancies of all uncultured peoples. They
had not yet unfolded into the Supreme Deity of heaven
and earth, with his brilliant and marvellous court of sec-
ondary immortals.
Less striking, yet more ancient and more persistent, than
this system of worship was another, of which we see and
hear but little, yet which formed the most generally ob-
served religion of our far-off progenitors, so far as indi-
cations prove. This was the worship of ancestors, the
home-worship of the Aryan family, the exclusive worship
of the Aryan clan, the religion of the hearth and of the
ancestral tomb, —the only worship that really reached the
hearts of the earty Aryans.
Something very similar to the Aryan religious system
exists to-day in China as a phenomenon that has utterly
died out elsewhere in civilized lands. There, too, we find
a double system, — the worship of ancestors underlying
the more public systems of belief. But the Confucian phi-
losophy has never taken deep root as a popular religion,
while ancestral worship has a stronger hold on the public
heart than Taoism or Buddhism. On the Western conti-
nent, among the Indian tribes of the southern United
States, appears a similar double system. Here, however,
it was not an ancestral, but a demonic system, a developed
Shamanism, that was mingled with the worship of the
elemental gods. But while the worship of ancestors held
the supremacy in China, that of the solar deity and of
134
THE ARYAN RACE.
later mythical gods did so in America. Among the
Aryans it is probable that there was a closer balance of
influence between the two systems of worship. Very prob-
ably in ancient Arya ancestral worship was strongly in
the ascendant. Later it became to some extent balanced
by the growing prominence of lithological -worship. But
the latter attained supremacy only in India and perhaps
among the Celts. Elsewhere the indications seem to show
that the former continued the dominant system.
In considering this question we are dealing with one of
which the history is somewhat obscure. The Aryan house
and clan worship did not attract the attention of the poets,
whose verses are filled with the marvels of mythical legend.
The family worship was in no sense public, like that of the
elemental deities. It was conducted in secrecy and mys-
tery. Strangers were not admitted to the sacred rites of
house and clan. And every family had its own ritual,
which was a secret never to be divulged. In consequence
very little testimony concerning this system of worship has
made its way into literature. It is only alluded to inci-
dentally, in vagrant paragraphs ; and what little is known
of it has been recovered only by patient research and by
piecing together flitting fragments of evidence. Neces-
sarily, to some extent, doubt creeps in. Vre can rebuild
the ancestral worship only in outline. It has nowhere in
the past been made the subject of brilliant essays and the
groundwork of great poems, like those devoted to the mul-
titudinous deities of mythology.
-
The worship of ancestors seems to have been almost
universal among mankind in a certain stage of develop-
ment. Traces of it can yet be found in all parts of the
earth. But, so far as appears, it became a well-defined aud
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 135
largely exclusive system only among the Chinese and the
ancient Aryans. And it is in all probability to this wor-
ship of its ancestors by the members of the Aryan house-
hold that we owe the peculiar secrecy of family life, the
supremacy of the house-father, and the strong resistance
to intrusion upon the domestic domain. According to the
theory of Cox, the original ancestor of the family became
a deity whom the survivors had to worship and propitiate.
His burial obsequies needed to be duly performed, and
rites of sacrifice to be paid to him. This could be done
only by the eldest son, his legal representative. Thus the
house-father became the house-priest, and the continuance
of the family a religious necessity. To let it die out from
lack of offspring would have been impious, and to this was
due the practice of adoption, in default of male heirs,
which afterwards became so extended a custom in the
Aryan clans. But the tendency was to reduce every kind
of association to that of kinship ; and this idea was kept
up long after the free adoption of strangers had rendered
it an utter myth. To the position of the father as the
family priest and the offerer of rites to the ancestral deity,
whom he represented, we owe his supremacy as the family
ruler. The family was a composite one, made up of sev-
eral generations of the liviug and the dead, of all of whom
the house-father stood as the central point. It was a sa-
cred group, which it was his duty to keep together, and to
suppress all insubordination that might threaten its integ-
rity. Doubtless from the position he thus held gradually
rose his absolute power and the unquestioning submission
to his decrees. He spoke with the voice of the whole body
of ancestral deities, and was responsible to the house-gods
for the rightful performance of his sacred function.
136
THE ARYAN RACE.
Hearn, in his “ Aryan Household,” has given a highly
interesting description of this ancient system, which we
may here epitomize, at least in its more trustworthy de-
tails. Kinship and community of worship and property
were the ties which first bound men into definite groups,
the family bond expanding into the first national bond, —
that of industrial and religious communism. It began
with the family, extended to the clan, and thence to the
tribe, attaining a very considerable extension before it was
replaced by the territorial system of civilized nations.
Each family had its common burial-place. This in later
times became the common burial-place of the clan or
gens, in which it would have been sacrilege to inter a
stranger. In very early times it is probable that the
bodies of deceased ancestors were interred in the dwelling.
At a later date they were kept for some time in the dwell-
ing, and then interred outside. These customs are still in
vogue in China. They gave the deceased a very close
relation to the house, and to a very late period the hearth-
stone seemed to be considered in the light of an altar to
the ancestors, the sacred stone of oblation to the departed.
The common meal was apparently the symbol of the
common worship, though probably this symbolic signifi-
cance was only recognized in meals specially prepared in
honor of the dead. Spirits could not be expected to come
unless specially invited and their share set apart. Yet
they did not consume the gross part of the food, but only
its spiritual essence, — all objects being supposed to have
souls. In this we seem to have the origin of sacrifice,
while the after-consumption of the food by the priests was
but a sharing in the holy banquet, of which the deities had
regaled themselves on the spiritual portion. Many illus-
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OE ARYAN WORSHIP. 137
trations might be drawn from ancient history of such
sacred feasts to the deities of families and clans, and
feasts to the dead are celebrated in Russia to the present
day.
The evidences of this ancestral worship are abundant.
The Hindu Vedas distinctly recognize the worship of the
Pitris, or fathers, and to this worship the Sama-Veda is
specially devoted. “ The Piti'is are invoked almost like
gods; oblations are offered to them, and they are believed
to enjoy in company with the gods a life of never-ending
felicity.” 1 A similar belief existed among the Iranians,
who worshipped the Fravashis, or spirits of the dead, and
especially of their own ancestors. The latter worship was
conducted with strict privacy. With the Hellenes the
family worship of the house-spirits — the “Gods of the
Hearth,” or “ Gods of the Fathers ”—was common. On
the Romans it had a specially deep hold, and reduced the
public worship almost to a nonentity. For these house-
spirits we have many names, — the Genius, Lares, Penates,
Manes, and Vesta. Vesta was the hearth, with its holy
flame. The Lares and Penates were the true house-spir-
its, the ancestral gods so dear to the Roman heart. We
know little about this family worship with the Slavs,2
Teutons, and Celts. AVe have no ancient literature from
the pre-Christian days of these peoples. Strong efforts
were made by the Christian Church to abolish every phase
of heathen worship, yet it has not succeeded in suppress-
1 Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, ii. 46.
2 Ralston tells us that “the worship of the Slavonic Lares and
Penates, who were, as in other lands, intimately connected with the fire-
burning on the domestic hearth, retained a strong hold on the affections
of the people even after Christianity had driven out the great gods of
old.” — Songs of the Russian People, p. 84.
138
THE ARYAN RACE.
ing all traces of the ancestral deity, — which indeed has
left its mark in the guardian or patron saint of the Catholic
devotee, and in the feasts to the dead among the Slavs
and elsewhere. With the Russians the ancient family god
yet lingers as the Domovoy, —the house-spirit, or angel in
the house; reproducing the “hero in the house” of the
Greeks, the Roman “ man in the house,” and the Teutonic
Hasing. Among the Teutonic nations, indeed, there are
man}7 traces of the house-spirit in its later form of a
half-demonic goblin. We have it in the Ilausgeist, the
Kobold, the Brownie, the Robin Goodfellow, etc., — prank-
ish elves, ready to do the house and hearth work of neat
housekeepers during the night, but apt to leave annoyance
for the idle and careless. These house-goblins could be
propitiated by offerings left them,—probably a relic of
the ancient sacrifice. But they became the foes of those
who neglected them, as the ancient house-spirits became
the deadly enemies of those who failed to offer them due
libations. In short, as to the general existence of ances-
tral worship, either as a persistent fact or as a transformed
survival, we may quote from Tylor: “In our time the dead
still receive worship from far the larger half of mankind.” 1
The Aryan house-worship seems to have been conducted
with inviolable secrecy. Each family had its own ritual,
which was a precious secret, never to be divulged, and
which appears indeed to have had the force of an amulet.
Thus in the Rig-Veda the antique poet sings: “I am
strong against my foes by reason of the hymns that I hold
from my family and that my father has transmitted to
me.” In Greek legend we find that Polyphemus scorns
the authority of Zeus; he will recognize no god but his
1 Primitive Culture, ii. 112..
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 139
own father» Poseidon. So the Russian peasant of to-day
draws a line of distinction between his own Domovoy and
that of his neighbor. The former will aid, but the latter
will seek to injure, him. The ancient house-spirit was the
house-guardian, who repelled thieves and warned tres-
passers. Little the ancient Aryan cared if the universe
had one or many authors. The gods of his own hearth
were nearer and dearer to him than these remote deities of
all mankind.
As the Aryan family expanded into the Aryan clan, so
did the house-worship into that of the clan, whose rites
were paid to the remote ancestor of the group of kindred.
It is a question of some interest to what limit of ancestry
the family worship extended. Mr. Hearn thinks it was lim-
ited to the great-grandfather, and that the household might
be made up of six generations, three of the living, and
three of the dead. At this point, in his view, the house
unfolded into the clan, colonists being sent out to found
new households, and the immediate kinship of the family
being exchanged for the more remote kinship of the clan,
while the common deity worshipped by the several families
was the spirit of the ancestral founder of the clan. It is
doubtful, however, if any such definite rule prevailed; and
no doubt inclination or internal disorganization had much
to do with the disintegration of families and the growth
of the wider and less intimate association of the village
or clan. The existing Chinese custom is of interest in this
connection. As a rule the Chinese family worships the
spirit of the father and the grandfather. But this home-
worship never seems to extend beyond the third generation
of the dead. The Chinese clan, on the contrary, worships
its remote ancestor whenever known, and the grave of such
140
THE ARYAN RACE.
an ancestor, if preserved, forms a sacred centre for the
religions services of the clan. The descendants of Confu-
cius, for instance, worship their great ancestor to-day as
the chief of the gods to them.
So the Aryan clan-worship was as devoted and as exclu-
sive as that of the family. Special gods of tribes and
clans existed among the Teutonic and Celtic tribes, while
the worship of the ancestor of the gens was a common
custom with the Greeks and Romans. Mr. Hunter tells us
that it is the first duty of a good Hindu to worship his vil-
lage god.1 Among the Semitic tribes evidences of the same
custom exist. The Bible, in its story of the Hebrew patri-
archs, yields testimony to this effect. With the Aryan clans
this worship was secret and exclusive. A strong feeling
existed against intrusion on the sacred rites of a Greek or
Roman gens. We are told, indeed, that the presence of a
stranger at the religious ceremonies of a Greek clan was
intolerable. And these ceremonies seem to haAre been held
at the common burial-place of the clan, — a strong indica-
tion that the worship was paid to the original ancestor.
All these ceremonies, however, were conducted with such
secrecy that we know very little concerning them. There
seems to have been a dread that a god might be stolen or
seduced away if not guarded with strict care. For this
reason, perhaps, the name of the tutelary deity of Rome
was always kept a profound State secret.
On the other hand, the worshippers might reject or desert
their god, if found weak to redress their wrongs or to pro-
tect them from evil. Several amusing illustrations of this
may be given. The Finns of to-day in time of need do
not hesitate to neglect their gods and pray to the more
1 Orissa, i. 95.
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 141
powerful Russian deities. So we are told, as an incident
in Roman history, that “ the statue of the Cumaean Apollo
came near to being thrown into the sea, from an ill-timed
fit of weeping. Fortunately it was considered that the
tears were for his old friends the Greeks, not for his new
friends the Romans.” 1 As a more modem instance we
may quote : “ A prince of Nepaul, in his rage at the death
of a favorite wife, turned his artillery upon the temples of
his gods, and after six hours’ heavy cannonading effectu-
ally destroyed them.”2
It was this secret, domestic, and clannish worship of
the Aryans that hindered the public worship from gaining
a controlling influence, and checked the growth of a power-
ful priesthood in most branches of the race. There was
not the almost complete hindrance to the growth of my-
thology that we find in the early Chinese; yet the worship
of ancestors was sufficiently strong to prevent mythology
from becoming dominant as a religion. Beneath it, almost
unseen by us, yet vital and vigorous, lay the more ancient
s}Tstem, that of the worship of family and gentile ancestral
gods. Yet ancient Arya was not without its other deities.
Its people possessed an active imagination, and could not
avoid being vividly impressed with the mighty powers and
strange phenomena of Nature, which they naturally en-
deavored to explain or comprehend. And, as in every
ancient effort at such explanation, they arrived at the con-
ception that these phenomena were the work of intelligent
and powerful beings, the overruling gods of earth and
heaven. In the primitive era they had nothing that can
fairly be called a mythology. They worshipped Nature as
1 Saint Augustine, City of God, i. 101.
2 W. E. Hearn, The Aryan Household, p. 25.
142
THE ARYAN RACE.
they saw it, with no idea of symbolism and no miscon-
ception of the meaning of their objects of reverence. It
was yet summer and winter, daylight and darkness, the
bright dawn and the terrible storm, thunder and sunshine,
which they looked upon as the powerful deities of the uni-
verse, and upon whom they called for protection, or whose
dark wrath they deprecated in cases of peril beyond the
power of their humbler domestic deities. Only by slow
degrees did these elemental gods lose their original signifi-
cance. Probably at an early period the Aryan imagination
had begun to invest them with metaphorical significance.
The Clouds became the cows of the gods, whose milk re-
freshes the earth, but which at times are hidden in caves
by robbers. The Dawn, the beautiful spirit, sends her
glad eye-beams over the earth, and is speedily pursued by
the glowing Sun. In winter the Earth mourns for the dead
Summer, which lies buried in the dark prison of Hades.
Or the Summer sleeps in the land of the Niflungs, the
cold mists, guarded by the serpent Fafnir, while her buried
treasures are watched by the dwarf Andvari. Hundreds
of such metaphors gradually grew around the movements
of the sun, the winds, and the clouds, the demon Night,
and the bright god Day, the all-destroying "Winter and the
all-restoring Summer. In time the origin of these meta-
phors became obscured, and even the derivation of the
names of many of the gods was forgotten. Anthology
gradually rose out of the primitive worship of the powers
of Nature, and the endless biographical details which
surrounded the mythologie deities testify to the original
activity of the Aryan imagination.
An interesting feature in the primitive Aiyan mythology
is the selection of the bright, broad arch of the heavens
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OE ARYAN WORSHIP. 143
as the primal deity, the great father-spirit of gods and
men. This deification of the sky was not peculiar to the
Allans. We find traces of it in Babjfionian, Chinese, and
American worship. But at a very remote period in the
civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia, Mexico and Peru,
the sun gained supremacy as the first and greatest of the
gods, the prime spirit of the universe. With the Aryans
the sun was much later in attaining acknowledgment, and
the shining arch of the sky continued the deity supreme.
This is the deity that descended to historic times as the
great father-god, the object of highest reverence to most
of the Aryan peoples when first they emerged into history.
Varuna, the elder god of the Vedas, was the veiling
heavens. He stands opposed to his brother Mitra, who
is the deity of the noontide sky, while Varuna appears to
represent the starlit firmament. We find this god again
in the Uranos of Greek mythology. He sits, in the words
of the Vedic poet, throned in splendor, clad in armor of
gold, and in a palace supported on a thousand columns,
while around him stand ready the swift messengers of his
will. At a later date another heaven-deity arose, Dyaus,
the god of the bright canopy of the day, before whose
worship that of Varuna died away. We have the same
god in the Zeus of the Greeks, the conqueror of his pre-
decessor, Uranos. He again appears in the Teutonic Tib,
the god of light. The Odin of the Scandinavians, with
the sun for his single eye, seems to be another lieaven-
deit}7. Again we have the heaven-god in his paternal
aspect as the Dyaus-pitar of the Hindus, the Zeus Pater
of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the Romans, — the kindly and
beneficent progenitor of gods and men, the supreme par-
ental deity of all that has life.
144
THE ARYAN RACE.
With the Hindus the sun was S3Tmbolized by a later
deity, the golden-haired Indra, the god of light, whose
arrows were each hundred-pointed and thousand-feathered.
With the lightning for his beard, and brandishing a golden
whip, he drove his flaming chariot across the heavens.
The rains and the harvest were his gifts to mankind, while
the demons which threatened the human race found in him
a terrible foe. In Balder the Beautiful, the lord of light
of the Teutons, we discover the Sun-god again, dying
yearly at the winter solstice by the hand of the blind god
Hödr, the demon of darkness, and rising again in his
beauty as the shining summer returns.
But we cannot here attempt to name the interminable
list of deities of the later Aryan worship, many of them,
particularly in Greek n^tholog}7, borrowed from neighbor-
ing nations, and fitted, often ve^ awkwardty, into the
Olympian court of the Hellenic gods. It will suffice to say
that this ancient S3Tstem of worship is preserved to us in its
most archaic integrit3' in the Vedas, — the work which holds
the oldest recorded thoughts of man on natural phenom-
ena. In it we have the deific host as the Devas, the
shining ones ; the dawn as Ushas, the bright, loving, gen-
tle, white, and beautiful; the deities all simple in their
attributes, and without the wide garment of m3Tth that
afterward enfolded them, — plainty the elements half
transformed into the immortals.1 We find ourselves here
1 A striking instance exists in tlie story of Agni, the Fire-god of the
Hindus. The Vedas tell us that two sticks were the parents of this
deity, who was no sooner born than he turned upon and devoured them.
Here is the original method of obtaining fire by the friction of two sticks
transparently displayed. Yet Agni soon became one of the mightiest
of the gods. He grew rapidly from his humble origin, flaming upward,
as it were, from earth to heaven.
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 145
-
but a step beyoucl the archaic Aryan stage, in which these
deities were yet clearly the powers of earth, air, and sky,
and in which each was, for the time, the supreme being
to his worshipper. Their deities had not yet been special-
ized as we find them later among the Greeks.
As the branches of the Aryan race left their primeval
home and sought new lands of residence afar, certain
highly interesting modifications came over their systems
of worship, to which some attention is requisite. We do
not refer to the expansion of their simple ideas of the
deific attributes of natural phenomena into the splendid
phantasmagoria of mythology, but to the characteristics of
their religious organization. In this there was a marked
difference between the eastern and the western Aryans.
With the eastern branch the national or mythologie wor-
ship rose into supremacy, the priesthood became a power-
ful body, and the people fell under that dominion of
priestcraft which has ever been such an opponent of
human liberty. This was particularly the case with the
Hindu tribes, over whom the priests gained an extraordi-
nary predominance, unequalled in the history of any other
people. The Hindu nation is one without great kings or
great heroes. Its only great men are the lawgivers, the
founders of systems, the priests of the race. When the
tribes first marched to victory over the aborigines of India
it was with the priests at their head. The Vedas are the
record of the stirring hymns of praise or invocation with
which these priestly warriors led their soul-stirred hosts.
And when the Hindus sank to rest upon their conquered
territory it was under the dominion of the priests. No
great warrior led them to new victories, no powerful
kingdom-maker welded the scattered bands into a nation,
10
146
THE ARYAX RACE.
oo earnest thinker wrote the history of the people. It
was the history of the gods, not that of man, with which
their thinkers were concerned; and we have grand systems
of religious philosophy instead of a record of the mighty
doings of man. The story of Hindu civilization is a
phenomenon without parallel upon the earth.
The story of the Persians begins under conditions
strikingly similar to that of the Hindus. Here, too, we
behold a people marching to conquest with a priestly
leader at their head. The great figure of Zoroaster dwarfs
all the heroes of the sword. And their antique literature
is religion, not history. It yields us only the outlines of
that Zoroastrian system of faith and philosophy which
was gradually filled up by priestly successors. But the
location of the Persians forced them into a very different
channel of history from that pursued by the Hindus.
Instead of the hot, moist, enervating lowlands of the
Indus and the Gauges, so favorable to the ^growth of
superstitious belief in the divine power of the elements,
they inhabited the bleak and inspiriting highlands of Iran.
And the trumpet-blast of war rang everywhere around
them, forcing them into battle for self-defence, and finally
rousing them to victorious aggression. Great warriors
and kings arose. The history of man began, and that
of the gods ceased to be written. Yet to the late days
of the empire the priesthood continued a powerful body,
and, in alliance with the Throne, aided strongly in the sub-
jection of the people.
If now we examine the religious history of the western
Allans a different phenomenon appears. In none of the
western branches did a powerful and controlling priest-
hood arise, with the possible exception of the Celtic, in
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 147
which the shadowy group of the Druids stands out with a
prominence not attained by the priesthood of the Teutons,
Greeks, or Italians As for the early history of the Slavs,
we are utterly in the dark; but there is no trace of a
priestly establishment, and but faint indication of the exist-
ence of a mythology. In the religious, as in every other
respect, the home-staying Slavs seem most fully to have
preserved the antique Aryan system, their creed remaining
that of worship of the ancestral gods of the house and the
clan, while mythology with them failed to advance beyond
its elementary stage.
With the Greeks a rich and varied mythology arose,
and an active public worship of the gods of the whole people
emerged. Yet it never attained dominance over the hum-
bler house-worship. The priesthood always remained an
obscure body, without power in Grecian history, or control
over the Hellenic people. The prevailing rites were those
of the clan, not those of the nation. The literature was
largely devoted to the gods, but it was almost void of
deific philosophy. It dealt with the elemental deities in
a somewhat playful spirit, humanized instead of spirit-
ualized them, and wrought the mythical stories of their
lives into the neat embellishments of poetry, not into the
ground-work of vast theological philosophies. The gods of
mythology were brought down to earth, looked squarely in
the face by thinking men, laughed at, and dismissed. The
whole fabric of myth and fable fell prostrate in splendid
disarray, its rich fragments only to be used thereafter as
poetic simile and metaphor. The worship of the ancestral
spirits alone survived, while the thinking men of Greece
set themselves to work to devise a secular philosophy of
the universe. And Greece moved with unyielding steadi-
148
THE ARYAN RACE.
ness toward democracy, largely through the lack of a
priestly control of the public mind which usurpers could
seize and wield.
In Rome priestcraft stood at no higher level than in
Greece. The Roman people were from the first deficient
in imagination, and mythology there attained but a stunted
growth. The house and clan worship, on the contrary,
shows itself more prominently than in Greece. We find
traces of it everywhere in Roman liistoiy, as when Corio-
lanus, deserting Rome, seats himself b}T the hearth of his
Volscian foe, and claims the protection, not of the Latin
Jupiter, but of the hearth-spirit of the household he has
entered. Even when the literature of Greece invaded
Rome, and was imitated with all the fervor of the Roman
mind, its mythologie feature obtained no special promi-
nence ; while the gods of the Roman mythology always re-
mained vague and unspecialized, and little developed from
their antique Aryan form. Priestcraft, in consequence,
never gained any footing of power in Rome. The system
of public worship was, indeed, mainly reduced to a phase of
Shamanism, augury and divination replacing the creation
of great religious ideas, which elsewhere ruled the minds
of men. Thus in the development of the Roman State, re-
ligion never enters as an important political element. We
perceive only a steady struggle between the democracy
and the aristocracy, fought with secular weapons alone,
with the growing supremacy of the democracy ; until the
inordinately powerful element of the army overthrew the
whole ancient fabric of the State, and replaced it with a
military despotism.
Teutonic history, so far as we are acquainted with it,
tells the same story. There was plenty of imaginative fer-
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OF ARYAN WORSHIP. 149
vor, and mythology gained very considerable develop-
ment ; yet but faint traces of a priesthood have survived.
Possibly the worship of the household and the clan dwarfed
that of the elemental deities. When the Teutons march to
victory it is not with a priest at their head, nor even by
the side of their military chief. No such figure makes its
appearance, and the only Teutonic hero is the wielder of
the sword. It was doubtless principally due to this rea-
son that Christianity made such rapid progress with the
Teutonic tribes. There was no one with a strong interest
in preserving the mythologie faith, no one to control the
tribes in matters of belief, no earnest clinging to the dei-
ties of mythology. The tribenien vaguely dreaded the
vast gods of the elements, but their main worship was
paid to the deities of the household, on whom alone their af-
fections were centred. This private worship was too deeply
ingrained to be eradicated except by slow degrees ; but the
weakly held mythologie faith was suffered to be replaced
by the Christian creed with an ease that would appear
frivolous did it not prove how shallow an impression my-
thology had made upon the Teutonic mind.
If we examine the early legend and fable of the several
Aryan branches, an interesting illustration of their differ-
ence in religious condition appears. The ancient Hindu
tradition has nothing to do with man. Only the gods
appear in it, and its supernaturalism is wildly extravagant
in character. Man is a creature not worthy to be named
in a universe which contains the gods. Ancient Greek
tradition tells a widely different story. In this, man is the
central figure. The gods are present, it is true, and there
is no lack of supernaturalism; but heroic man is their
equal rather than their slave. He is displayed in steady
150
THE ARYAN RACE.
struggle against the terrible powers of Nature, and in
combat even with the Olympian deities. He is usually
overcome and punished, yet he always retains something
of the heroic; and the most striking figure in Greek
mythology is that of Prometheus, the defender of man
against the gods, terribly punished, yet eternally un-
submissive, and hurling threats from his rock of torture
against Zeus, his deific foe. Nor are the gods always
the victors. In the pages of Homer we find heroes dar-
ing to wound the gods, and escaping punishment for the
impious deed.
If now we come to the antique legend of Rome it is to
find the gods utterly forgotten, and man alone the subject
of thought. It is admitted that the so-called history of
ancient Rome is a tissue of fable ; yet it long held its own
as history from the fact that it dealt solely with human
deeds. It is almost devoid of the supernatural. The gods
hardly enter as agents. The old Roman saw only his
hearth-spirits, or but vaguely beheld the elemental deities
of ancient Ary a. His imagination dealt solely with man
and his deeds, in a series of stories that are sober history
as compared with the exploits of the Greek heroes, and
that breathe the most rigid spirit of the practical, as com-
pared with the exuberantly fanciful Hindu conceptions.
This lack of a powerful priestly organization in the
history of the western Aryans is without a counterpart in
the civilized nations of the earth, with the one exception of
China. That it has had much to do with the strong ten-
dency to democracy in these nations, as compared with the
tendency to aristocratic government elsewhere, can scarcely
be questioned when we remember how powerful a control-
ling agent is religion upon the mind of man, and how
THE DOUBLE SYSTEM OE ARYAN WORSHIP. 151
vigorous is the grasp of the ruler who can seize at once the
spiritual and the temporal reins of dominion.
The facts here given of the slight hold upon the western
Aryans of their system of national religion, and the lack
of an organized and influential priesthood to develop the
public worship and to create a strong sentiment in its favor,
are of interest for a reason above briefly adverted to. No
bulwark existed against the inflow of a foreign system of
belief, and'we cannot be surprised at the rapid progress of
Christianity. Rome was a fallow field to the seed of foreign
religious thought.* Its native faith was but feebly held,
and we behold successively the Persian, Egyptian, and
Christian creeds making their way into the Imperial City,
with scarcely a word of protest or. opposition, until the
political danger from Christianity roused the dread of the
Emperors and gave rise to spasmodic persecutions. Not a
word of appeal for the old gods comes from the priests of
Rome.
In Greece something similar appears. The systems of the
philosophers there replaced the figments of mythology, and
the opposition to this philosophy came from the conserva-
tive class of the people rather than from the priests. The
after opposition to Christianity came from the adherents of
the philosophers, with their proud admiration of the great-
ness of Greek thought. Mythology in Greece was dead
before Christianity arose. Among the Teutonic clans the
opposition to Christianity was nothing stronger than a
vague distrust of strange gods. The voice of a chief in
favor of the new faith carried with it his whole body of
followers, who threw off their mythologie belief as easily
as they might have discarded an ill-fitting cloak. No priest
raised his voice in favor of the old gods. The hearth-
152
THE ARYAN RACE.
spirits were as yet left to the people, and these were the
only deities which had a hold upon their hearts. This
phenomenon is singularly contrasted to the persistence
with which the same tribes afterward clung to the slightest
shades of sectarian Christianity. Instead of being without
a priesthood, they had now come under the control of the
most completely organized priesthood in human history.
VII.
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT.
HE political organization of the ancient Aryans is one
of the most interesting features in the whole history
of human institutions. It has had an extraordinary in-
fluence upon the development of modern civilization, its
basic conditions having maintained themselves with a
remarkable persistence through long eras of tyranny and
oppression. Finally, in the government of the United
States we have what is in many respects a survival of the
government of ancient Ary a, so far as the simple conditions
of the antique tribe can be brought into analogy with the
complexity of relations in the modern nation. For in
the Republic of the United States we possess a system of
v
local self-government ranging upward through the famil}T,
the township or ward, the city or county, and the State, to
the nation, with its general supervisory power over all
below it. This is a close counterpart of the family, the
village, clan, or gens, the tribe, and the confederacy of
the ancient Aryans, each with its self-government in all
that immediately concerned itself. It is the system of non-
centralization, as opposed to the centralization which forms
the basic feature of despotic government. In religion the
same phenomenon appears. There was no State religion in
ancient Ary a, and there is none in modern America. The
religion of the household or of the clan ruled in the one, as
154
THE ARYAN RACE.
that of the person or of the sect does in the other. In
despotic government, on the contrary, a centralized or
State religion is an essential feature, and few tyrannies
have been established without its aid.
The development of human institutions has been very
little considered from this point of view ; and before ex-
amining the Aryan system particularly, a brief comparison
of this with the other systems of civilized mankind is of
importance. Such a comparison will reveal features in the
Aryan organization differing from those of any other family
of mankind, and show clearly that ancient Aiwa was the
true cradle of human liberty. Yet it will show at the same
time that Ary a was by no means the cradle of human
civilization. Despite the very evident intellectual superi-
ority of the Aryan race, its institutions acted as a strong
preventive to political progress; and but for the activity of
external agencies, and of influences at variance with its
democratic organization, the Aryan peoples of to-day might
be in the same state of stagnation that we find in the vil-
lage communities of Russia and India.
In reviewing the early organization of human society,
wherever advanced beyond the savage state, a remarkable
uniformity makes itself apparent, indicating that the social
.and political conditions of mankind unfolded under the
unconscious action of general laws, on the same principle
that appears in the development of languages. Yet as
human language, after pursuing the same course up to a
certain level of unfoldment, diverged from this point into
several different channels, so in the development of insti-
tutions a like phenomenon is manifest. Our purpose here
is very briefly to glance at these lines of divergence.
The primal condition of man was undoubtedly a social
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 155
one. The lowest savages were combined in groups for
various purposes. One of these was that aggregated for
defence. A second was the family group, — probably
definitely and firmly organized only at a late date. A
third was the group for religious observance, — yet later
in its concrete organization. Eventually these three
groups appear to have become concentrated into one,
that of the family. The family, with its secondary ex-
pansion into the community of kinsmen, became at once
the social, the political, the religious, and the military
group of mankind. Such is the condition of developing
man everywhere that we can perceive him after he has
advanced from the savage into the barbaric stage of cul-
ture. The family idea becomes the ruling principle in
every interest of the tribe.
Early history, however, reveals to us two distinct stages
in this unfoldment, —that of the patriarchal group, and that
of the clan group; the latter an important step of advance
beyond the former. The patriarchal system is that of Asia
and northern Africa ; the clan system that of Aryan Europe
and North America. The desert was the native home of
the patriarchal group. In the broad and barren steppes
of northern Asia, and the great sandy plains of Arabia and
northern Africa, the pastoral nomadic habit naturally per-
sisted, agriculture in its faint first efforts remaining sec-
ondary to the interests of the wandering shepherd tribes.
Communism reigned supreme. The flocks were the prop-
erty of the tribe as a whole. Scarcely any individual
property existed. The narrow confines of the tent, and
the necessity of frequent movement, prevented the accu-
mulation of any large amount of household treasures.
Politically a like communism prevailed. There was no
156
THE ARYAN RACE.
clear line of family demarcation. Each community was
a group of kindred, and was under the leadership of the
patriarchal representative of the remote ancestor of the
tribe. But this leadership was by no means an absolute
control. The separate families declared themselves suffi-
ciently to form an assembly of freemen, not nearly so
distinctly formulated as that of the Aryans, yet with a
proud sense of personal independence, and a voice in the
management of tribal concerns. The organization, how-
ever, was that of an army, with hereditary right in its
leader, and subordination to his authority in all warlike
affairs.
-
Religion was similarly communistic. AVe find no trace
of any well-defined family worship, though there is evidence
that a tribal ancestral worship prevailed. But combined
with this was Shamanism, — a system of demon worship, in
which incantation was the prevailing rite. Sorcery ruled
as the main form of religion alike with the Mongolian
tribes, the antique Semites, and the more barbarous tribes
of North America. Very probably it had a strong footing
also with the Aryans in their nomadic era, though it sunk
into decadence at a later date. The only declared priest-
hood we can trace in this archaic stage of development is
that of the Mongolian Shaman, the Babylonian sorcerer,
and the American medicine-man or conjurer. Knavery
undoubtedly had as much to do with their service as re-
ligion, and it must have been an easy task for the leader of
the tribe to gain control of this venal priesthood, and thus
add to the spiritual dignity which he possessed as the rep-
resentative of the tribal ancestor. So far as we can trace,
in every instance some degree of religious authority at-
tached to his office.
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 157
All this may have nothing specially to do with the
Aryans, but it is of importance from its decided contrast
to the character of their organization and from the essen-
tial significance it bears in the history of human institutions.
To the simplicity of the patriarchal system, indeed, we owe
the original unfoldment of human civilization. But it was
a civilization in what is known as the Asiatic form, — an
unprogressive absolutism. Such is the condition which
existed in the three non-Aryan civilizations of the old
world, those of China, Egypt, and Babylonia. They were
all patriarchal despotisms.
As already said, the nomadic tribe is a regularly organ-
ized army. It has its arms, and great ability in their use.
It has its ready-formed regiments and divisions in the ma-
jor and minor groups of the tribe. It has its clan-leaders,
and its patriarchal tribal head, to whom all its members are
willingly subordinate. And it is accustomed to swift and
long marches, in which it takes with it all its property and
food. No link of attachment binds it to a locality. Mi-
grations are among the common duties of life. There is
nothing to hinder invasion of a country at a moment’s
notice, settlement upon the land in case of victory, or swift
retreat and disappearance in the desert in case of defeat.
The indications are strong that to this facility of warlike
migration and this military t}Tpe of political organization
we owe the establishment of the early empires. China is
most distinctively a patriarchal empire. Despite its long
settlement, its developed agriculture, its abundant litera-
ture, its complex industrial and social conditions, it
remains to-day politically a patriarchism, — the simplest
and most archaic of all governmental systems. The em-
peror is the father of the empire. The long continuance of
158
THE ARYAN RACE.
his absolutism arises from the fact that he stands at the head
of the ancestral religious system of the nation. Ancestral
worship has continued the ruling faith of China, and' the
emperor is the high-priest of this worship, — the hereditary
representative of the primal ancestor of the people. He
has inherited both temporal and spiritual power, and the
bodies and souls of his subjects are alike bound captive.
Like the house-father of old, the officiating priest of the
house-worship and the family despot, the Chinese emperor
is the only intermedium between his national family and
the heavenly powers. He is answerable only to the gods
for his deeds, and it is sacrilege to question his command.
It is interesting also, in considering the character of Chi-
nese civilization, to find that the ancient Shamanism still
prevails. No developed elemental worship has been de-
vised, all efforts to establish a philosophic faith have
failed with the people at large, and the Taoism of to-day
is undisguised sorcery. l"et it is probable that the Chinese
empire arose ere the primitive ancestor-worship had been to
any great extent superseded by the Mongolian Shamanism
of to-day. In every feature of its organization, language,
and belief, the archaic condition of mankind has persisted
in China. This is largely due to the almost utter lack of
imagination in its people ; and the only civilized progress
it display's is in devices for the practical needs of man,
and in moral apothegms of the same tendency. The
Chinese empire is the utmost unfoldment of the purely
practical mentality of the Mongolian race.
In the early stages of the Egyptian monarchy we can
somewhat vaguely perceive indications of a closely similar
organization. The Pharaoh was the high-priest of his
people, to whom he likewise bore a paternal relation.
TilE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 159
There seems little reason to doubt that this empire was the
outgrowth of a pastoral condition of society, that the
emperor was the development of the original patriarch,
and that his godlike dignity and absolute power arose from
his being at the head of the ancestor-worship of the people,
the hereditary representative of the primal ancestor. In
early Egypt as in early China the absolutism of the em-
peror was not complete. There are indications of a tribal
division of the people, and of the existence of a nobility
?with political powers. But patriarchism in its very nature
tends to absolutism, and in both cases a complete subor-
dination, alike of nobles and people, to the sacred father
and emperoi; eventually succeeded. Religiously, however,
Egypt developed far beyond China. Its people were of
the highly imaginative Melanochroic race, and they devised
a complex system of mythology, with a powerful priest-
hood, at whose head the emperor stood supreme. He was
chief priest as well as sole ruler of the nation. As in
China, he governed his people in bod}T and soul.
Babylonia yields similar indications, though its organi-
zation is more obscure. Its earliest traceable religious
system is a Shamanism, a highlyT developed sorcery. Upon
this, however, arose a nature-worship, a somewhat com-
plicated series of elemental gods. In regard to its govern-
mental idea we are greatly in the dark. But its emergence
in the heart of a pastoral region inhabited by patriarchal
tribes, its absolutism, and the sacred or godlike character
which plainly attaches to the later monarchs of Babylonia
and Assyria, strongly indicate that it was a development
of the patriarchal S3'stem.
It is singular and interesting to find that the archaic
civilizations of mankind all apparently rose from the pas-
160
THE ARYAN RACE.
toral phase of society, — the simplest and most primitive
method under which great bodies of men could be organ-
ized into national groups. Materially they all made great
and highly important progress. Politically they remained
almost stagnant. The simplicity of their system clung to
them throughout, and absolutism continued a necessary
phase of their national organization. The people sub-
mitted without a struggle, because their souls were bound
in the same fetters that confined their bodies.
We may briefly advert to yet another national develop-
ment of the pastoral tribes, from the interesting evidence
to be gleaned from its literary remains and its present
belief. The Hebrew people had distinctively a patriarchal
organization, and their religious ideas present traces of
ancestor-worship. Abraham was and is looked upon as
the father of the race, its remote ancestor. It is not
Abraham, however, but the god of Abraham, or rather a
compound of this deity wdth the god of Moses, that is
worshipped to-day by the Jews. The indication is strong
that this special god of the Hebrew patriarch, the family
god of Abraham, with whom he conversed and held per-
sonal relations, represented an ancestral divinity. The
particular Jehovah of the Hebrews was the Jahveh of
Moses, the family god of the Mosaic clan, as is clearly
indicated in the Biblical narrative. He expanded with the
growth of the Hebrew intellect into the supreme ruler of
heaven and earth, yet to a very late day the Hebrews
regarded him as the special deity of their race, their
patriarchal divinity.
Coming now to the consideration of the American tribes,
it is of high interest to perceive that they possessed the
same type of family organization as that of Asia and
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 161
Europe, and that in this respect they were considerably
advanced beyond the patriarchal system, and closely ap-
proached, though they did not quite reach, the clan type of
the Aryans. Great differences in this respect, however,
prevailed in different parts of America, some tribes being
much more advanced than others. The barbarian tribes
of North America, usually classed as in the savage hunting-
stage, yet really to a considerable extent settled and agri-
cultural in condition, were organized on a definite clan-
system, — a compound of kindred families like that of the
Aryan village. This Indian organization, while closejy
resembling, differed in some important respects from the
Aryan system. It was, indeed, intermediate between the
patriarchal and the clan system, and represented an in-
teresting phase in the natural development of human
institutions.
Communism prevailed to a greater extent than with the
Aryans. Not only land communism, but household com-
munism existed with many of the tribes, and the isolation
of the household and the tyranny of the house-father, so
marked in the Aryan organization, does not appear in the
Indian. Among the Iroquois of the North several families
inhabited the same dwelling, with little separation of
household rights; and in the case of the Pueblo Indians
of New Mexico, whole tribes, numbering several thousands
of individuals, are still found dwelling in single great habi-
tations. With these tribes there is no division of the
landed property, and in this respect their organization is
distinctly patriarchal.
With the Indians of the southern United States, how-
ever, the Creek confederacy and the neighboring tribes,
whose habits were much more agricultural than in the case
11
162
THE ARYAN RACE.
of the northern tribes, an interesting advance in social and
industrial conditions is indicated, their organization very
closely approaching that of the Aryan village. Here the
households were separate ; and while the soil was common
property, each family cultivated a separate portion of it,
and was sustained in its claim to the use and products of
this family field. In one respect only did the industrial
organization differ from that of the Aryans. Each family,
while controlling the produce of its own field and its own
labor, was obliged to place a defined portion of the product
in a village storehouse, whose stores were laid up for the
good of the whole community. Hunters were also obliged
to place there a portion of their game. This provident
institution, resembling that of whose existence in Egypt
we have evidence in the scriptural story of Joseph, consti-
tuted a form of taxation for the public good, and seems
to indicate an advance in political conditions beyond the
Aryan community, in which no such custom existed. In
reality, however, it signifies a lower stage of development.
It was a remnant of the general communism of the patri-
archal stage of association, and one which seems to have
worked adversely to the interests of American liberty.
This industrial condition extended farther north than
would be imagined from what is generally known of In-
dian history. Historians of Virginia and Maryland state
that the Indians of those localities had the custom of di-
viding their lands into family lots, and possessed common
storehouses, in which a portion of the food had to be
placed, under control of the sachem, whose power was
to some degree absolute.
This brings us to a consideration of the political organi-
zation of the Indian tribes. It must be borne in mind,
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 163
however, that in the Indian, as in the Aryan community,
there was no such definite organization as is produced by
a body of written laws. Custom was the only law of
these communities, and there was doubtless considerable
variation between different tribes. Yet the general prin-
ciple of organization was everywhere the same. The sys-
tem was an elastic one, which might stretch considerably,
but could not easily break.
One marked feature of the Indian organization was the
existence of two sets of officers, with definitely separated
functions. These were the sachems and the chiefs, — the
former distinctively peace-officers, the latter the leaders in
war. These officers were elected; and in the elections
it is of interest to find that the women of the clan had
a vote as well as the men. "Woman-suffrage is apparently
a very old institution on American soil. The principle of
choice of these two sets of officers, however, was very
different. The war-chiefs were elected for personal valor,
and there might be several of them in the clan. The
sachemship alone was a hereditary office, and needed to
be permanently filled; the new incumbent being usually,
though not necessarily, chosen from the family of the de-
ceased sachem, and perhaps vaguely representing the
clan ancestor. The government of the clan was in the
hands of all its adult members, male and female ; while
the tribe, made up of a number of clans, was governed
by a council composed of the sachems and chiefs, and
the confederacy, where such existed, by a council of the
sachems of its constituent tribes.
No such definite arrangement existed in the Aryan clan.
The principal chief there also probably had a hereditary
claim to his office ; but he was not distinctively a peace-
164
THE ARYAN RACE.
officer, like the sachem, but a leader in war, and the council
of freemen formed the executive body in matters of peace.
His power was not distinctly marked off from that of chiefs
chosen for personal valor or warlike ability only, and in
time the distinction may have become wholly lost; the
ancestral claim of the chief, which was never very strong,
vanishing completely.
The Indian organization indicates an intermediate con-
dition between the patriarchal and the Aryan village com-
munity. In the sachem we have the patriarch, shorn of
some of his powers, yet not reduced to the mere war-leader
of the Aryan clan. One important remnant of his old
power existed in his control of the public storehouse. As
the latter appears to represent a partial survival of the
original general communism of the patriarchal tribe, so the
control of it by the sachem represents the original control
by the patriarch of all the wealth of the tribe. In neither
case was this an ownership; it was simply a control for
the good of the community. The mico — or sachem — of
the Creek communities had no claim to the treasures in the
storehouse, but had complete control over them. These
had assumed the shape of a general taxation for the public
good, and he was the general executive officer of the com-
munity, with a considerable degree of arbitrary power in
his administration. His government, however, Avas con-
trolled by the village council, which met to discuss every
question of equity and to try every case of crime.
There was one further feature of interest in the Indian
organization to which we must now advert, — that of their
religious conceptions. Among the savage tribes of the
North, Shamanism appears to have been the prevalent faith,
and sorcery the prevalent practice. The medicine-man
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 165
was the religious dignitary, his influence over the tribe
being that of fear rather than of awe and spiritual dignity.
The worship of ancestors is not indicated, while no ele-
vated religious conceptions are displayed. A vague poly-
theism seems to have existed, with belief in a “Great
Spirit ” and a series of lesser gods ; yet this was undefined,
and nothing that can be called a mythology had arisen.
Among the southern tribes, however, a very different
state of religious belief prevailed. They possessed a
mythological religious faith, with the sun for supreme
deity, while their worship was conducted with all the
ostentation of temples, high-priest, and a considerable
priestly establishment. The democratic religious system
of the Aryans did not exist among them. Their religion
was aristocratic in tendency, had a vigorous influence over
the minds of the people, and afforded a ready instrument
for their subjection. While, indeed, there was a high-
priest, the mico was the real head of the religious hie-
rarchy, and added to his temporal influence the power
arising from spiritual dignity. The patriarchal position
of spiritual head of the tribe adhered to him, though the
ancestral worship, to which he may have owed his original
religious authority, had vanished.
The final outcome of this condition of affairs appears in
a tribe to the west of the Creeks, the Natchez. The gov-
ernment of this tribe was an absolute tyranny, the power
of the ruler being based on his religious dignity. He had
become “The 81111,” a god on earth, and the people were
slaves to his will. There was an intermediate class of
nobles, — perhaps the remnant of the former council; but
“ The Sun,” the earthly representative of the supreme
deit}', was absolute over the entire community. The
166
THE ARYAN RACE.
organization of this tribe presented some other interesting
features, which we have not space to describe, but which
were in conformity with the principles above indicated.
It constituted a patriarchal despotism in close conformity
with those of Asia.1
As to the origin of this peculiar state of government
and religion among the southern Indians, so different in
some respects from those of the wild tribes of the North,
we have much warrant to consider it a survival of the
organization of that vanished race known as the “ Mound-
Builders,” which at one time occupied the whole valley of
the Mississippi and its tributaries, but which seems to have
been dispossessed by the bordering savage tribes, partly
annihilated, and perhaps partly crowded back into the
southern range of States, wThere it left its descendants
in the Natchez, the Creeks, and others of the southern
tribes.
A brief glance at the Indian civilizations of Mexico and
Peru will lead us to conclusions like those above reached.
In Mexico absolutism was not fully declared. The Mon-
tezuma, the spiritual and temporal superior, was controlled
by a council, — the survival of the old tribal assembly. Yet
he was rapidly advancing toward complete absolutism at
the period of the Spanish invasion. The storehouse of the
northern tribes was here represented by an extended sys-
tem of taxation in kind, over which he had full control,
while his position as supreme pontiff gave him an influence
1 For fuller information concerning these interesting institutions of
the American Indians, the reader may be referred to Jones’s “ Antiqui-
ties of the Southern Indians,” in which the organization of the Creeks
and Natchez is fully described, and Morgan's “ Ancient Society,” which
gives valuable information in regard to the Iroquois confederacy and th?
general governmental relations of the Indian tribes.
THE COUKSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 167
which threatened to overthrow the feudal power of the
nobility.
-
In Peru existed an absolutism as entire as that vre have
seen among the Natchez. The Inca was autocratic both
in religion and in government. He was the descendant of
the gods and a god himself, whose mandate none dared
question. A nobility existed, but it wras a nobility with-
out authority, except such as emanated from the Inca.
The land and all its products were at his command. Vil-
lage establishments existed, with division of family lots;
but a large section of the land belonged to the Inca and
the church, and was worked by the people for their benefit.
The product of the royal and Church lands was stored in
great magazines, the direct counterpart of the storehouse
of the North, since their contents were held for the good
of the whole community, though subject to the Inca’s
absolute control. It was unquestionably the spiritual dig-
nity of the emperor, in all the civilizations named, that
caused the entire submission of the people to his will, and
that subordinated the nobility as fully in the peaceful
empire of China as in the warlike empire of Peru. It is
surprising to find so close a conformity existing in the
principles of Indian organization throughout the wide
range of North and South America. Nothing could show
more clearly the supreme influence of natural law over the
development of human institutions.
Yet there was another agency necessary to the produc-
tion of the final effect, of the utmost importance in this
connection, — that of war. Much as human hostility and
bloodshed may be deprecated, the fact is unquestionable
that to it wre owe all accelerated steps of human develop-
ment. Even in this advanced age, wrar was necessary for
168
THE ARYAN RACE.
the rapid annihilation of slavery in America, and has
yielded within a few years a degree of political and indus-
trial progress which otherwise might have taken centuries.
In savage and barbarian communities it is the all-essential
element of progress. The conservative clinging to old
conditions and institutions, which is yet vigorous in modem
nations, was a hundredfold more so in the early stages of
human progress, and war was the only agent sufficiently
radical and energetic to overthrow old ideas and customs,
and reorganize society on a new basis.
AVe can here but briefly glance at its general effects.
One of the first and most important of these is to increase
the authority of a successful chief and to bring new tribes
under his control, either as allies or as conquered subjects.
The equality of the freemen of antique communities was
rudely broken into in states of war. The patriarchal tribe
at once became an army, and was subjected to army disci-
pline, which included autocratic power in its chief. On
regaining a state of peace this absolutism of the chief over
his followers did not entirely vanish, while it remained
strong over the conquered tribes. The general effects of
war at that stage of human culture were the following:
The principle of human equality was dissipated, and society
divided into classes, composed of the principal chief, or
king ; the secondary chiefs, or nobles ; the freemen, of the
conquering tribes ; and the subjects, or slaves, of the con-
quered tribes. Some such division seems to have been an
inevitable consequence of continued war, and appears as
well in the development of Aryan as of patriarchal institu-
tions ; and in every instance some condition approximat-
ing to that of feudalism seems to have emerged. It existed
in Mexico at the era of the Spanish conquest. It had very
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 169
probably existed in Peru at an earlier period. Indications
of its existence in Egypt and China appear. And in the
empire of Japan it continued in existence until very re-
cently. But in every instance it has disappeared under
the growing power of the king. In Egypt and China we
perceive the monarch of a province gradually extending
his authority over the whole country by successful war.
A similar phenomenon appears in Mexico and Peru. In
every such case the chiefs of the conquered tribes became
the nobles of the new empire, with some remnant of au-
thority. But in all the cases mentioned, the power of the
nobles gradually vanished, and that of the monarch became
absolute.
This phenomenon was undoubtedly due to the religious
position of the monarch of these patriarchal empires.
Where the body would have vigorously resisted, the soul
sank in powerless slavery. In every one of the four em-
pires named, the emperor was supreme pontiff, the head
of the religious establishment, the son and representative
of the gods, and the connecting link between earth and
heaven. It was the recognition by the people of this
spiritual dignity in the emperor, their superstitious awe,
and the moral support which they gave him in his encroach-
ments upon their liberties, that rendered the resistance of
the nobility unavailing. Step by step they sank until they
became ciphers in the state, with nothing but a title to
distinguish them from the people. This is the condition
which exists to-day in China, where the nobility and the
people stand on an equal footing in respect to the authority
of the emperor.
A highly interesting recent case in point is that of
Japan. Our early historical knowledge of that empire
170
THE ARYAN RACE.
reveals a strong feudal nobility, with a spiritual emperor
of reduced authority. A powerful chief, the Tycoon, or
Shogun, through the influence of his position as head of
the army, succeeded in robbing the Mikado of nearly all
his temporal authority, and taking the reins of power into
his own hands, leaving to the titular emperor little more
than his title. But the people remained spiritual subjects
of the Mikado, their souls in submission to him, while
only their bodies were governed by the Tycoon. This
powerful basal support has enabled the spiritual emperor,
during the disturbances caused by the forced opening of
Japan to foreign intercourse, to overthrow his rival, bring
to an end the feudal institution, and make himself unques-
tioned autocrat of Japan. After a long interregnum
patriarcliism has there reached its inevitable result, — that
of the spiritual and temporal absolutism of the emperor.
The patriarchal empire, while naturally the simplest in
organization and the easiest established, was one that
tended inevitably to autocracy and subjection. For the
establishment of liberty in civilization the growth of a
widely different system was necessary. And this we find
in the Aryan organization.
It is of high interest to perceive the great degree of con-
formity that existed in the unconscious development of
human institutions. Patriarcliism seems to have always
evolved as the first stage beyond savagery. TTe find it
widely disseminated in Asia and northeastern Africa, with
its final culmination in despotic governments. Throughout
America society, under the influence of agricultural indus-
tries, had advanced a stage beyond patriarcliism. Yet the
civilizations there arising tended inevitably toward abso-
lutism. For the establishment of democratic institutions a
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 171
further step of advance in barbarian organization was nec-
essary ; this step forward we have next to consider.
The description above given of the political characteris-
tics of the other barbarian and civilizing tribes of mankind
is of importance from their marked contrast to the Aryan
condition, and as indicating the special features to which
we owe the Aiyan type of civilization. This t}rpe, we ma}T
say here, was overturned in two of the Aryan empires,— the
Persian and the Macedonian, — which deliberately adopted
the Oriental S}Tstem, and maintained it by the power of the
sword and by the fact that their subjects were largely
Semitic and long accustomed to despotic rule. It was
partly overturned in the Roman empire, as a result of con-
tinual war and the subjection of the State to the army and
its chief, though the senate of Rome kept intact the princi-
ple of the Aryan assembly to the last, and the emperors
never succeeded in their efforts to attain spiritual authority
and to command the worship of their people. In no other
Aryan nation has the effort to kill out the spirit of ancient
Arya attained any marked success. Democracy and decen-
tralization have unyieldingly opposed the efforts of aris-
tocracy and centralization.
It is singular within what definite limits human progress
has been confined. In every case of development be}Tond
the savage state we find the family organization gradually
unfolding into patriarchism. In two families of mankind,
the Asiatic Mongolian and the Semitic, progress stopped
at this point, in conformity with the pastoral character of
their industries, and patriarchal civilizations arose, their
early development being due to the simplicity of their sys-
tem, and the ease and completeness with which it permitted
the control, movement, and subordination of large bodies
172
THE ARYAN RACE.
of men. In two other families, the American and the
Aryan, development proceeded further as a result of the
change from the nomadic pastoral to the agricultural con-
dition, and produced the clan or village system ; and it is
remarkable, considering the impossibility of intercourse
between these two races, how closely their organizations
resembled each other. In both we find the village system,
the democratic assembly and election of officers, the com-
bination of families into clans, of clans into tribes, of tribes
into confederacies. In both, the organization of the peo-
ple was personal, not territorial. In both, communism in
landed property prevailed. In both, patriarcliism existed
to the extent that a certain family in each clan was con-
sidered of purest descent, and usually furnished the clan
rulers. Yet, as we have shown, the American system
retained the principle of communism in a much greater
degree than the Aryan, and this communism extended to
religion. The democratic system of Aryan worship had
not appeared, the sachem was at the head of the spiritual
establishment of the more civilized tribes, and he became
the representative of the Sun, as the Egyptian Pharaoh did
of Osiris, and the Chiuese emperor of the vaguely defined
heaven deity, while absolutism appeared as a direct con-
sequence of this spiritual autocracy.
The distinctiveness of the Aryan organization lay in its
complete development of the clan-system, its suppression
of community in property beyond partial land-communism,
and its almost complete suppression of religious commu-
nism. In ancient Aiya each house was a temple, each
hearthstone an altar, each house-father a priest, each fam-
ily a congregation, with its private deity and its private
ritual of worship. Some minor degree of communism
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 173
existed in the general ancestor-worship of the clan and
in the less influential worship of the elemental deities ; but
the hearth-spirit seems to have been the favorite god of
the Aryan, and a remarkable decentralization in religion
prevailed. jNo people has ever existed more free in soul
from the reins of spiritual authority. The Aryan house-
father was a freeman before the court of Heaven, as he
was in the assembly of his tribe. It was impossible for
any ruler to hold him fettered body and soul like the sub-
ject of an Oriental monarchy. Mentally he was in eternal
rebellion against tyranny. And it is to this that we owe
the political liberty of modern Europe and America. Yet
the decentralized and democratic organization of the
Aryans was strongly opposed to that concrete and definite
association in large, settled masses which seems everywhere
to have been a necessary preliminary to civilization. A
considerable degree of political consolidation has every-
where preceded material progress, and to this the Aryan
spirit was vigorously opposed. It is one of our purposes
in this inquiry to trace how this opposition was overcome,
and how the village community developed into the State.
IVe have already in previous sections described to some
extent the Aryan tribal organization, — the political system
which prevailed in ancient Arya, and of which indications
appear in the early history of all the branches of the race.
It is a problem of interest to trace the evolution of the
family into the clan, of patriarchism into democracy. In
the largely patriarchal Highland tribes of Scotland there
existed minor groups of fifty or sixty clansmen, with a
particular chief, to whom their first duty was due. This
is analogous to the Slavonic house community, whose
members range from ten to sixty in number. When
174
THE ARYAN RACE.
grown too large, a swarming to found new families takes
place. But this in itself does not break up the close
patriarchal family relation. Two further steps are neces-
sary to clanship, — the apportionment of a separate lot of
land to each new family, and the development of a system
of home worship.
This is what occurred in the Aryan clans, each of which
was formed of a group of several families descended from
a common ancestor and with a separate organization of its
own. It was ruled by an assembly of the house-fathers ;
though this mode of government was gradually subordi-
nated to that of the chief, elected by the assembly, but
usually from a privileged family. It had its system of
clan-worship, its common burial-place, and its common
landed property. There was no occasion for any house-
holder to make a will. The property-rights of a deceased
member descended to his fellow-clansmen. Xo definite
legislation existed. The clan was governed by a series of
ancient customs, the growth of centuries of usage. The
assembly was an executive, not a legislative bod}7, though
it seems to have legislated sufficiently to meet business
exigencies not previously provided for. To these clan
conditions must be added another of considerable import-
ance,— that of the duty of common defence, common re-
venge, and common responsibility. Each clansman was
bound to defend his fellows, to exact retribution, in money
or blood, for injury to a fellow, and was himself respon-
sible for any criminal act committed by a member of his
clan. The whole clan of a murderer was held accountable
for the murder, and blood-revenge might be taken upon
any member of the offending clan. Xo true sense of indi-
viduality existed. Each clan was an individual, and the
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 175
whole clan, or any part of it, was responsible for the acts
of any of its members. On the other hand, damages
awarded to any person for injury received, belonged not
to him, but to his clan. It was the duty of each clan to
restrain its .members from crime, and this duty was ac-
centuated by a general responsibility.
Though we cannot look into ancient Arya itself, wre can
perceive these conditions as they left their mark on subse-
quent Aryan law. In old Anglo-Saxon law, for instance,
the duty of each clan to act as a police upon its members,
its money responsibility for any crime committed by a
member, and its equal share in damages awarded to a
member, are clearly shown. But the traces of this cus-
tom have descended still lower, and may be found rather
widely spread to-day in the system of the vendetta or
blood-revenge, which exists among all half-civilized Aryan
peoples. AVe know to what an extent it formerly pre-
vailed in Corsica, from which point it still extends as far
east as Afghanistan. In this custom it is the duty of
every member of a family, one of whose near kindred has
been murdered, to exact blood-revenge from any member
of the murderer’s family. The Southern United States
were the seat of a well-developed vendetta system of this
character in the ante-bellum days, and cases yet occasion-
ally crop out to show that the spirit of antique Aryanism
is yet alive in the benighted regions of this country.
As for the tribal combination of the Aryan clans, it is
doubtful if it existed as a permanent group in ancient
Arya ; and the confederacy of tribes arose only under the
influence of migration and warfare. It appeared among
the Teutonic people only after they were forced into strong
combinations by long conflict with Rome It may be fur-
176
THE ARYAN RACE.
ther said of the clan-organization that it was vigorously
maintained. None could leave it without permission from
the council, aud no new member could be admitted without
a ceremony of initiation. The clan-council seems in some
cases, or among certain tribes, to have been limited in
number. Evidences exist of an ancient council of five in
Greece, Rome, and Ireland. This limitation does not ap-
pear elsewhere. It should also be said that, in addition to
the agriculturists, the clan contained hereditary artisans.
Commercial pursuits, however, such as the business of the
grain-dealer, do not seem to have been hereditary.
From what has been said, it will appear evident that the
antique clan-organization was one of very great simplicity.
There was nothing that could be called criminal law,
though there were many rules of business procedure.
There was no legislator and no executive. Each clan
took on itself the duty of punishing crime against itself.
It was not the duty either of chief or council to see that
justice was done between persons. The council mainly
concerned itself with the care of the common property and
with the good of the clan as a whole. The chief was
personally active only as a war-leader. He had no special
duty or authority in peace. Of courts, laws against crime,
or officers of justice, we have no indications. The family
was under the autocratic control of the house-father. Re-
venge for wrong was the duty of the kindred of the injured
person, who might exact damages in property or in kind.
Injury from outside the clan it was the duty of every
clansman to avenge.
The military system was as simple as the civil. The
clan was the basal unit of the arm}7, and marched to war
under its chosen chief. A group of such clans, under a
THE COUKSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 177
tribal chief, formed an army. Every freeman was a sol-
dier. The military system existed ready formed in the
civil. This is clearly indicated in the Celtic and the Teu-
tonic warlike organizations ; and an interesting evidence
of the existence of a similar system in Greece is given in
the Iliad, in which old Nestor tells Agamemnon to muster
his men by phyla1 and by phratra,1 so that each clans-
man might support his fellows in the ranks. Of the early
Roman system we are in ignorance.
Yet another survival of the ancient clan-s}Tstem may be
spoken of here, —that of the co-operative guild, or trade,
which existed in Greece' and Rome, in old Ireland, and
was largely developed in Middle-Age Europe. A similar
system exists in Russia to-day, where its development from
the village community organization is very evident. In
addition to the communistic guilds of workmen in the
cities, many villages are arranged on the principle of
communistic artisanship. AYe are told that there are Rus-
sian villages where only boots are made, others whose in-
habitants are all smiths, and some, indeed, which contain
only communistic beggars.
-
This review of the system of clanship as a political con-
dition may be followed by a consideration of the later
stages of growth in Aryan institutions. The clan-system
in its purity was adapted only to a barbaric stage of so-
ciety. Further development could take place only through
the entrance of new elements into the situation. It may
be said here, however, that in Attic Greece a vigorous
republic was established, that differed in organization from
the ancient tribal system in only one essential particular, —
that of the replacement of family by territorial relations;
1 Sub-divisions of the tribe.
12
178
THE ARYAN RACE.
and that the great republic of the United States is but an
expansion of this idea. Communism has died out, the
council is composed of elected representatives instead of
the whole body of freemen, and men are grouped in terri-
torial divisions instead of kindred groups; but with these
exceptions the political system of the United States con-
stitutes a direct development of the method of organiza-
tion of our remotely prehistoric ancestors.
The clan-element which gave rise to the historic devel-
opment of Aryan institutions was that of chieftainship.
It was an element of individualism placed side by side with
that of communism. It was an inevitable outcome of the
situation, and one destined, with the aid of warlike aggres-
sion, to carry the Aryans far forward on the road of
progress. To its evolution our attention must .now be
turned. In process of time the idea of kinship became
more and more of a fiction in the Aryan clan. The family
had its dependents, and in the warlike period its slaves
and freedmen. The clan in like manner had its depend-
ents, wdio after three generations of service acquired a
hereditary right in the soil. The increase of this alien
element exerted a very important' influence upon the his-
tory of Greece and Rome, as we shall see further on. It
will suffice here to say that the wealth and superior posi-
tion of the chief enabled him to surround himself with a
larger body of dependents than was possible to ordinary
freemen. His estate was apparently an independent house-
hold, organized on the old patriarchal system, with its own
lands, its own cattle, and its own group of slaves and
laborers. It was a house community on a large scale.
This state of affairs, if not originated, was certainly en-
hanced by war.
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 179
Nor was it alone the hereditary and the elected chiefs
who acquired this special importance. Any one with war-
like reputation enough to attract followers could gather
around him a body of retainers, mainly composed of war-
like youths who were ripe for battle. And there was no
hindrance whatever to such a person separating from the
village and starting an independent establishment. Over
such retainers the chief acquired an authority like that of
the house-father over the famity. He was their absolute
lord, to the power of life and death. They could leave
his service if they wished, but were the subjects of his will
while they remained. The tie of connection was a tie of
honor, and its strength may be seen in the ardent devotion
of the Teutonic and Celtic clansmen to the cause of their
chief.
The incessant wars that prevailed during the period of
migration added greatly to the power and influence of the
chiefs. To those with hereditary title to their chieftain-
ship were added those elected for their valor, and perhaps
those who gained influence through their wealth and per-
sonal powers of attraction. Through the above-named
influences the community gradually became divided into
the three classes of nobles, freemen, and slaves. Not
that the nobles had any political authority over the free-
men, or could set aside the voice of the assembly; their
dignity was solely personal. Yet war and conquest had
their inevitable effect in adding to the inequality in wealth
and power. The chief naturally seized the lion’s share of
the spoil, and used it to increase the number of his fol-
lowers. And subject-villages became subordinate to him
personalty rather than to the clan. Over these he gained
some degree of political authority and rights of taxation.
130
THE ARYAN RACE.
Step by step the ancient system became subverted, and
a new S3Tstem of individual authority established, as war
gave the warrior precedence over the citizen. Indications
of this growth of aristocracy can be seen in every branch
of the Aryan race, from the Rajput nobility of India, to
the chiefs of Greece, Rome, and Germai^, and the so-
called kings of Ireland.
Maine says of the Irish chiefs that though they formed
to some extent a class apart, they stood in closer relation
to the septs they presided over than to one another.
There is some reason to believe that the tribal chief had
gained a portion of the authority of the Druids, and acted
as priest and judge as well as war-chief. The popular
assembty, so powerful in Greece and Rome, had lost all
judicial authority over the Irish Celts. Property was
rapidly losing its communistic character. The chief
claimed ownership of large individual tracts, as well as
certain rights in the communal lands ; villagers claimed to
own the communal lots they had long cultivated ; and a
system of petty usurpation had set in, apparent to a
greater or less degree in all Aryan regions, that threat-
ened in time to completely overturn the old system of
land-holding. To it, aided greatly by war and the seizure
of large conquered estates, we owe the establishment of
feudalism,—the natural outcome of Aiyau communism
and chieftainship.
The political development of Greece and Rome is of
interest in this connection, as indicating one of the two
natural methods of unfoldment of the Aryan S3Tstem. It
is the development due to the influences of cityT life as
contrasted with that arising from the agricultural condi-
tion. Its purest display is that seen in Attica. Here we
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 181
have to do with a sea-going commercial people, industrial
in habit, except to the extent that necessity drove them to
war. Into the active city that naturally arose under these
conditions, aliens crowded from all sides. Yet the early
form of government was strictly an organization of gentes,
or clans, the old Aryan personal system which had held
its own in the formation of the civic government. To the
new conditions it quickly proved inadequate. The great
influx of strangers, members of no gens, and jealously
excluded from gentile privileges, in time brought the gov-
ernment into the hands of a few ancient families, who
conducted it on the old clan-system, except to the extent
that the chiefs of the gentes acquired political authority
and replaced the ancient democratic by an autocratic rule.
The growth of chieftainship can be clearly seen in the
story of the Iliad, it being highly probable that the
“kings” of old Greece had but the standing of tribal
chiefs, with an authority augmented by the warlike sub-
jection of neighboring clans and the adherence of alien
dependents, while the voice of the assembly had become
a mere agreement in the proposals of the chief.
Undoubtedly there was a strong pressure from the alien
population of the city of Athens to gain a share of politi-
cal rights, and as strong a determination of the gentes
to hold the reins of power. It became more and more
evident, as the difficulty grew more urgent, that some
reform must be adopted, and several measures were pro-
posed by influential chiefs or lawgivers. The first of this
is a traditional one, ascribed to Theseus. lie sought to
consolidate the tribes into a nation, with one instead of
many councils. lie also attempted to divide the people
into the three classes of nobles, husbandmen, and artisans.
182
THE ARYAN RACE.
This legendary division was found in existence in Attica
in the seventh century b. c. But the gentile system of
organization was in full vogue at that period. At a later
date we find the people gradually overthrowing the usurped
authority of their chiefs. The basileus, or king, lost his
weak priestly authority, and was thenceforth called archon,
or civil ruler. Later again this hereditary life-office was
made elective, and limited to ten years. Finally it was
made annual, and divided among nine arehons. Thus the
partly overthrown authority of the popular assembly was
gradually resumed, and the will of the people became the
law in Attica.
The second definite effort at political reform was that
of Solon, who divided the people into classes on the basis
of property. This, however, did not do away with the
division into gentes. The assembly under his laws
gained increased, or at least better defined, rights, and
became an elective, a legislative, and to some extent a
governing body. But the bottom of the difficulty was not
touched by these reforms, and could not be while the gen-
tile families held all power. The final reform was that
made by Cleisthenes (509 b.c.). He divided the people
on a strictly territorial basis, without regard to their ties
of kindred. Abolishing the four ancient Ionic tribes, he
formed ten new tribes, which included all the freemen of
Attica. The territory was divided into a hundred denies
or townships, care being taken that the demes of each
tribe should not be adjacent. It was a distinct effort
thoroughly to break up the old clan-system. Each citizen
was required to register and to enroll his property in his
own deme, without regard to his ties of kindred. Each
deme had rights of self-government in local matters, while
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 183
controlled in national matters by the decision of the State
government. Under this institution arose the primal re-
public, the measure and model of all subsequent republi-
can governments. This reform was undoubtedly made in
response to the demand and sustained by the power of the
alien people of Attica, who must now have been suffi-
ciently numerous to defy the gentes.
It is of interest to find that the government of Rome,
without any knowledge of what was taking place in Ath-
ens, passed through essentially similar steps of develop-
ment. In fact, the formation of territorial government in
Rome is claimed to have preceded its establishment in
Athens. It was a natural and inevitable line of civic
growth. The same difficulty arose in Rome as in Athens.
The inflow of aliens brought a strong pressure to bear on
the system of gentes. The aliens demanded a share in
the government, which was resisted by the clansmen.
The earliest effort at reform is traditionally ascribed to
Kuma, who is said to have classified the people according
to their trades and professions. This failed to produce
any definite effect, and the Romans were still divided into
the patricians, the old gentile clans, with full control of
government; their clients, or dependents ; and the plebs,
or commons, the new class of aliens, without a voice in
political concerns.
To overcome the discord that arose from this state of
affairs Servius Tullius (576-533 b.c.) instituted a reform
closely similar to that of Cleistlienes. lie divided the
territory of Rome into townships or parishes, and the peo-
ple into territorial tribes, which crossed the lines of the
gentes. Each citizen had to enroll himself and his prop-
erty in the city ward or the external township in which he
184
THE ARYAN RACE.
resided. This monarch is also credited with the establish-
ment of a new popular assembly, which abrogated that of
the gentes, and admitted each freeman to a voice in the
government. Unfortunately, in addition to this wise ar-
rangement he made a second division on a property basis,
— establishing live classes according to the amount of their
respective property. This mischief-making scheme separ-
ated the people at once into an aristocracy and a common-
alty on the line of wealth, and gave the impulse to a struggle
that continued for centuries. In Rome, as in Greece, we
find the people gradually rising in power, and the govern-
ment becoming a more and more declared democracy,
though the struggle was here a very bitter and protracted
one. It was finally brought to an end by the inordinate
growth of the army and of the power of its leaders, by
whom a vigorous despotism was established.
In Greece, however, the power of the people grew rap-
idly, all aristocratic authority quickly disappeared, and a
disposition manifested itself to combine the several minor
states into a confederacy, with a general democratic gov-
ernment. The antique Aryan system was here expanding,
under the strict influence of natural law, into an ancient
counterpart of the modern United States. Unfortunately
for the liberties of mankind, it was overthrown by the
sword of Rome ere it had grown into self-sustaining
strength. During these many changes the ancient gentes
continued to exist as separate religious organizations; but
their antique political and communal constitution utterly
vanished.
In the political development of the Teutonic tribes widely
different conditions appeared. Their industries continued
agricultural, and their unfoldment was more strictly in the
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 185
line of the village system. Territorial government re-
mained subordinate to personal government. The power-
ful invasions by which the empire of Rome was overthrown,
and new states founded on its ruins, naturally gave im-
mense power to the chiefs, which was increased by the
incessant wars that succeeded and continued for centuries.
The original independent establishment of the chief ex-
panded into the feudal manor, and the chief into the feudal
lord. His power was absolute. The house-father was re-
produced in the lord of the manor. Below him were the
descending grades of wife and children, dependents and
slaves, as in the Aryan family. Around him were his re-
tainers, bound by ties of mutual honor and subject to his
will. His relation to them was that of military superior
and of chosen companion in arms. As for the constitution
of the feudal state, with its successive ranks, each lower
one being held as military subordinate to the higher, but
each, from the lowest noble to the king, being free from
any obligations beyond that of military duty, and being
absolute lord of his own territorial establishment and his
retainers, we have in it a direct expansion of the original
Aryan system, with marvellously little change in principle.
The Aryan village and tribe, with the chieftain and his
dependents and retainers, and his rights of suzerainty over
conquered villages, formed the direct though simplified
prototype of the feudal state, with its more complex system
of obligations and wider extension of authority.
In considering the development of the Aryan village-
system into the modern European state we find an inter-
esting illustration of the persistent force of archaic ideas.
Ancient Arya, as we have seen, contained, side by side, a
double system of government. The village was essentially
186
THE ARYAN RACE.
a democracy. But beside, and perhaps to some extent
over it, was the patriarchal establishment of the chief. In
the development of the feudal state both these conditions
persisted, and the subsequent national history of Europe
has been mainly a struggle between them for precedence.
The patriarchal establishment of the chief, being the
simpler and more centralized, and being one to which war
added strength, rose first to power, and in some states de-
veloped into a degree of absolutism, though its lack of
control of the religious establishment prevented it from
becoming completely autocratic. But the democratic idea,
though slower in its development, never died out, nor did
the subjection of the people ever extend be}Tond their
oodies to their minds and souls. The eventual supremacy
of democracy was inevitable. In every era of peace it
gained vigor, and to the extent that peace became the pre-
vailing rule its demands grew more energetic and its victo-
ries more decided. At present it has risen into complete
ascendency in America, while in Europe absolutism is
shrinking before its force, and must inevitably everywhere
give way to the “ government of the people by the
people.”
With a rapid review of the political development of hu-
man civilization, this chapter may close. As we have
seen, in two regions of the world patriarchism gained
absolute supremacy, democracy failed to develop, and
three states were formed on this simple system of paternal
and spiritual absolutism, — Egypt, Babylonia, and China.
One only of these has persisted unto to-day, — that of
China; and in it not a vestige of a democratic idea has
ever made its appearance. In America the growth of
democratic institutions made greater progress, though in
THE COURSE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 187
the two civilizations that arose, the spiritual authority
of the emperor enabled him to completely overthrow them
in the one case, and seriously threaten them in the other.
In ancient Arya the political development of barbarism
went farther. Democracy gained a marked development
both in political and spiritual affairs; the growth of a
priestly autocracy was checked by the system of individual
worship ; and the patriarchal authority of the chief lost
much of its force. The principle of election grew upon
that of heredity. In the development of every Aryan
civilization differing conditions operated, though it is re-
markable what persistency the ancient ideas everywhere
displayed. It is not necessary here to review all the
Aryan states separately. In only two of them the ancient
Aryan ideas developed with little external interference.
One of these we have already considered, —that of Greece,
in which the development proceeded under civic and com-
mercial influences. The other is that of England, in which
the Teutonic agricultural influences mainly prevailed.
Of all the European States, that of Saxon England was
least disturbed in its development by external forces. The
Norman invasion for a time gave supremacy to patriarch-
ism ; but this gradually yielded again to the steady persis-
tence of the democratic idea. The Aryan popular assembly
held its own as the English parliament, and has, step by
step, taken control of the government, until, finally, it has
left to kingcraft only its name and its palace. Fortunately
for European liberty, the priestly establishment which
eventually arose remained definitely separate from that of
the kings, and usually hostile to it. The bodies of Euro-
peans have been ruled by the Throne, but never their souls.
Thus it was impossible that they could be reduced to the
188
THE ARYAN RACE.
slavery of the Oriental system. Every effort of the kings
to seize spiritual authority has failed, the spirit of democ-
racy has steadily grown, and the promise is that ere many
centuries not a trace of absolutism will be left on European
soil.
-
Aryan political evolution has everywhere followed the
same general direction; but its rapidity has been greatly
affected by the conditions of society. Under the civic
institutions of Greece and Rome, democracy, territorial
division of the people, and private ownership of land
early appeared; while with the agricultural but warlike
Teutons and Celts progress in this direction has been
much slower; and among the agricultural, but peaceful
and sluggish, Hindus and Slavs, the ancient conditions
still in great part prevail. Yet in every case the general
course of evolution has been the same, and but one final
outcome can be expected to appear, — that of complete
democracy. In the patriarchal empires of Asia, on the
contrary, political evolution followed an exactly oppo-
site course, and long ago reached its inevitable ultimate
in complete absolutism. Political progress in these em-
pires has long since ceased, and can only be resumed
under the influence of Aryan ideas and a reversal of the
governmental principle which has so long held supreme
control.
VIII.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
ANGUAGE formed the clew through whose aid
modern research traversed the Aryan labyrinth,—
that mysterious time-veiled region in which so many won-
ders lay concealed. It cannot, indeed, be doubted that
even without the aid of language this hidden problem of
the past would have been in part solved. We have already
shown that the Aryans have much in common besides their
speech. Their industrial relations, their political systems,
their religious organization, their mythologies, their family
conditions, form so many separate guides leading to the
discovery of that remarkable ancient community. Nor is
this all. As we shall show farther on, the modern Aryans
have still other links of affinity, less direct, it is true, than
those so far traced, yet adding to the strength of the de-
monstration, and enabling us still better to comprehend the
conditions of that ancient and re-discovered community.
Yet, with all this, the fact remains that language offered
the simplest and safest path into the hidden region, and
that by comparison of words we have found out much con-
cerning the modes of life in old Arya that otherwise must
have remained forever unknown. This being the case, it
becomes a part of our task to consider the character of
the method of speech which lias proved of such remark-
able utility in the recovery of a valuable chapter of ancient
190
THE ARYAN RACE.
history. It is known to differ in important particulars
from all other types of human language, not so much in
its words, — for there many accidental coincidences with
other languages exist, — but in its structure, in that basic
organism of thought which is clothed upon with speech as
with a garment. Yet in order properly to understand these
structural characteristics, it will be necessary briefly to re-
view the several types of speech in use by the higher ranks
of mankind. A comparison of these types will reveal, as
all philologists admit, that the Aryan is the most highly
developed method of speech, and the most flexible and
capable of all the instruments of thought }Tet devised by
mankind. In this respect, as in all the others noted, the
Aryan in its original organization was superior to the other
human races.
The types of speech in use by the barbarian and civil-
ized peoples and nations are divided by philologists into
four general classes, — the Isolating, the Agglutinative, the
Incorporating, and the Inflectional; the last being sepa-
rated into two sub-classes, the Semitic and the Aiyan,
which properly should be considered as distinct classes. Of
these methods the isolating is usually viewed as the least
progressed beyond what must have been the original mode
of speech. It is the one in use by the most persistent of
human civilizations, — the Chinese. In the language of
China we seem to hear the voice of archaic man still speak-
ing to us down the long vista of time. It is primitive, as
everything in China is primitive. Yet through the aid of
a series of expedients it has been adapted to the needs of
a people of active literary tendencies.
Philologists are generally satisfied that man first spoke
in monosyllables, each of which conveyed some generalized
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
191
information. The sentence had not yet been devised, nor
even the phrase ; and language consisted of isolated excla-
mations, or root-words, each of which told its own story,
while no endeavor was made to analyze the information
conveyed into its component elements.
Yet this idea directly affiliates the language of primi-
tive man with that of the lower animals. For the lower
animals possess a language of root-sounds, each of which
yields a vague and generalized information, or is indicative
of some emotion. Ordinarily this language consists of very
few sounds, though in certain cases it is more extended,
and is capable of conveying some diversity of information.
This is particularly the case with some of the birds. And
it is usually a language of vowels, though an approach to
consonantal sounds is frequently manifested.
Early man, according to the conclusions of philological
science, possessed a language of the kind here described,
consisting of a few calls and cries, each conveying some
general information or indicating some emotion. As man’s
needs increased, the number of these vocal utterances in-
creased correspondingly, with a growing variety of conso-
nantal sounds. In time, it is probable that a considerable
vocabulary thus came into existence, though language still
continued but little developed beyond the root-stage of
speech.
No human tribe is now iii this archaic stage of language ;
even the lowest savages have progressed beyond it. Yet
that it once everywhere existed, is believed to be fully
proved by the analysis of existing languages, in each of
which a vocabulary of roots emerges as the foundation
of all subsequent development. And that this method of
speech continued until a somewhat late period in human
192
THE ARYAN RACE.
history seems indicated by one significant fact; this is,
that the two most ancient of civilizations—the Chinese and
the Egyptian — still possess languages which are but a
step beyond the root-stage. The indications are that these
peoples rapidly developed from barbarism into civilization
at an era when human speech was yet mainly in its archaic
stage, and were forced at once to adapt this imperfect
instrument to the demands of civilized life, without being
able to wait for its natural evolution.
The language of China is strictly monosyllabic, and its
words have the generalized force of roots. Yet these vague
words have been adapted to the expression of definite
ideas in a very interesting manner, which we may briefly
consider. The natural development of language consists
in expedients for the limitation of the meaning of words,
vague conceptions being succeeded by precise and localized
ones. This is ordinarily accomplished by the formation of
compound words, in which each element limits the mean-
ing of the others. Such an expedient has been adopted
in every language except the Chinese and its related dia-
lects. TThy it was not adopted by them, is an interesting
question, of which a possible solution may be offered.
The study of Chinese indicates that its original vocabu-
lary was a very limited one. The language seems to pos-
sess but about five hundred original words. But each of
these has several distinct meanings. The ancestors of the
Chinese people would appear to have made each of their
root-words perform a wide range of duties, instead of de-
vising new words for new thoughts. To advance beyond
this primitive stage either an extension of the vocabulary
or some less simple expedient was necessary. The Chinese
adopted a peculiar method for this purpose, the character
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
193
of which can be best shown by an illustration. We may
instance the word fao, which has the several meanings, “to
reach,” “to cover,” “to ravish,” “to lead,” “banner,”
“corn,” “way,” etc. These are modernized meanings.
Originally the significance of words was much more vague.
At present, however, the word tao, if used alone, has the
meanings above given ; and some method is requisite to
show what particular one of them is intended. The diffi-
culty thence arising is partly overcome by the device of
tones, of which eight are occasionally, and four are com-
monly used. The tone in which a word is spoken —
whether the rising, the falling, the even, or some other
inflection — indicates its particular meaning; and in this
way the five hundred original words are increased to over
fifteen hundred.
A more important device is that of combination. Two
words having some similarity or analogy in one of their
meanings are joined, and a special meaning is thus indi-
cated. Thus tli e word tao, above given, has “way” for
one of its meanings. Lu, out of its eight or ten meanings,
has also one signifying “way” or “path;” therefore
tao-lu means “way” or “road” only. So ting, having
“ to hear ” for one of its several meanings, is confined to
this meaning by the addition of keen, “to see” or “ per-
ceive.” General meanings are also gained by the same
method. Thus fa, “ father,” combined with mu, “ mother,”
yields fa-mu, “ parents.” Idling, “ light,” with sung,
“heavy,” yields khing-sung, “weight.” Gender and
some other grammatical expedients may be indicated by
the same device.
By a consideration of the above facts we can understand
why grammatical inflection was never adopted in the
in
194
THE ARYAN RACE.
Chinese. Inflection has its origin in worcl-compouncling.
But the fathers of the Chinese people seem to have ex-
hausted the powers of word-compounding as a method of
increasing their vocabulary. Instead of coining new words
to express new things, they seem to have spread their old
words over new things, and then limited their meaning by
compounding. This gave rise to two important results.
It was necessary to retain the integrity of form and mean-
ing of the old monosyllables, since each of them formed a
definite part of so many compound words; and it became
impossible to express all the intricacy of grammatical rela-
tions by word-compounding, since this would have led to
inextricable confusion. In consequence, the expedient of
the syntactical arrangement of words to. express gram-
matical variations was adopted, and the peculiar Chinese
method of speech came into existence.
A Chinese word standing alone has no grammatical
limitation. It may be noun, verb, adjective, or adverb at
pleasure. Its sense is as indefinite as that of the English
word “ love,” which may be used at will as verb, noun, or
adjective. This generalism of sense, found in some Eng-
lish words, is common in Chinese words. The special
meaning which each word is intended to convey depends
upon its position in the sentence. Every change in its
relation to the other words of the sentence gives it a new”
sense or grammatical meaning. Chinese grammar, there-
fore, is all syntax. There is no rhetorical freedom in the
arrangement of words into sentences. They must be
placed according to fixed rules, since any variation in their
position gives a new meaning to the sentence. And not
only the parts of speech, but the number, gender, and case
of nouns, and the mood and tense of verbs, are indicated
THE DEVELOPMENT OE LANGUAGE.
195
by the positiou of the words in the sentence, aided by the
use of certain rules of composition and of some defining
particles.
The Chinese expedient has been adopted by no other
family of language, though the Egyptian vocabulary is
almost as monosyllabic and primitive in character. Every-
where else the vocabulary seems to have been extended by
coinage of new words, and the principle of word-com-
pounding applied to other uses. The most archaic form
of the other types of language is that known as the Incor-
porating, or Polysynthetic, in use by the American tribes
and the Basques of Spain. This is a highly primitive
method, and was probably at one time widely spread over
Europe and Northern Africa, until replaced by more de-
veloped methods of speech.
In the typical incorporating method there are no words,
there are sentences only. The verb swallows up both
subject and object, with all their modifications. A Basque
speaker cannot say 44 I give.” He must say 44 I give it,”
in the one word. There is a poverty of the imagination
indicated. A hint never suffices ; no lacunoe are left for
the mind of the listener to fill up. Where we say 44 John
killed the snake,” the Basque must say 44 John, the snake,
he killed it; ” and all this is welded together into a single
complex word. This method is carried to a great extreme
in some of the American dialects. The verb absorbs not
only the subject, as in Aryan speech, but all the objects,
direct and indirect, the signs of time, place, manner, and
degree, and all the modifying elements of speech, the whole
being massed into a single utterance.
There is little sense of abstract thought in American
speech. Everything must be expressed to its utmost
196
THE ARYAN RACE.
details. As an instance we may quote the longest word
in Eliot’s Indian Bible: icut-ap-pe-sit-tuk-qus-sun-noo-
iceht-unk-quoh. In English we should express this by
“ kneeling down to him.” But in its literal meaning we
have, “ he came to a state of rest upon the bended knees,
doing reverence unto him.” "Whitney quotes, as a remark-
able instance of extension, the Cherokee word ici-ni-tciw-
ti-ge-gi-na-li-skaic-lung-ta-naw-ne-li-ti-se-sti, “ they will by
that time have nearly finished granting (favors) from a
distance to thee and me.”
The inordinate length to which words thus tend to
grow is somewhat reduced by an expedient of contrac-
tion. In forming the compound word the whole of the
particle is not used, but only its significant portion. Thus
the Algonkin word-sentence nadholineen, u bring us the
canoe,” is made up of vaten, “to bring;” amochol,
“canoe;” 2, a euphonic letter; and neen, “to us.”
Savage tribes generally display an inability to think
abstractly or to form abstract words, their languages in
this respect agreeing with the American. A Society
Islander, for instance, can say “dog’s tail,” “sheep’s
tail,” etc., but he cannot say “ tail.” He cannot abstract
the idea from its 'immediate relations. A Malay has no
separate word for “striking,” yet he has no less than
twenty words to express striking with various objects,
as with thin or thick wood, with the palm, the fist, a
club, a sharp edge, etc. This incapacity to express ab-
stract relations is strongly indicated in the American
languages, and indicates that they diverged into their
special t}Tpe at a very low level of human speech. The
Cherokee, for instance, can use thirteen different verbs for
various kinds of washing, but he has no word for the
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
197
simple idea of washing. He can say kutuico, “1 wash
myself; ” tcikungkala, “ I wash my clothes ; ” takuteja, “ I
wash dishes ; ” blit is quite unable to say “ I wash.”
All this indicates a very primitive stage of language, in
which every expression had its immediate and local appli-
cation, and each utterance told its whole story. There
was do division of thought into separate parts. In the
advance of thought men got from the idea “ dog” to that
of “dog’s tail,” and from that to “dog’s tail wags.”
They could not think of an action by itself, but could think
of some object in action. No doubt all language pursued
this course of development up to a certain level. Beyond
that point some families of speech began a process of
abstraction, gradually dividing thought into its constituent
elements. The American type failed to do so, but con-
tinued to add modifying elements to its verbal ideas as
the powers of thought widened, until language became a
series of complex polysyllables. This is the theory ad-
vanced by Sayce. All has continued in the original syn-
thetic plan. The secondary method of analysis has not
yet acted upon American thought.
Yet it is rather the method of language than of thought
that has remained persistent with the Americans. They
are undoubtedly able to think more analytically than they
speak. The force of their linguistic S3Tstem has held them
to a method of speech which their minds have grown be-
yond. Every tendency of their language to break up into
its elements has been checked by an incorporative com-
pounding, of which traces are yet visible. In two Amer-
ican languages, the Eskimo and the Aztec, the lowest
and one of the highest in civilized development, isolation
of word-elements has taken place. In these languages a
193
THE ARYAN RACE.
sentence may consist of several words, instead of being
compressed into a single word. A process of abstraction
exists in the Aztec. Thus the word ome, “two,” com-
bined with yolli, “heart,” yields the abstract verb ome-
yolloa, “ to doubt.” Through methods such as this the
powers of the American type have become increased; yet
in character it directly preserves a highly primitive con-
dition of human speech.
The third type of language which we need to consider
is that known as the Agglutinative. It is the method used
by the Mongolian peoples of Europe and Asia, with the
exception of the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, by the Dravid-
ians of India, and, in a modified form, by the Malayans
of the Pacific islands.
Agglutination means simply word-compounding for
grammatical purposes, without inflectional change of form.
In this linguistic method, as in the isolating, the sep-
arate words retain their forms intact, but many of them
have lost their independence of meaning and become
simply modifying particles. To the root-words the others
are added as suffixes, with a grammatical significance.
The syntax of the Chinese system is here replaced by gram-
mar, the principle of word-compounding having gained a
new purpose or significance. In some of these languages
each verbal root may be made to express an extraor-
dinary variety of shades of meaning by the aid of suffixes.
In the Turkish each root yields about fifty derived forms.
Thus if we take the root sev, which has the general mean-
ing of “ loving,” we may obtain such compounds as sev-
mek, “ to love ; ” sev-me-mek, “ not to love ; ” sev-dir-mek,
“ to cause to love ; ” sev-in-mek, “ to love one’s self ; ” and
so on. By a continued addition of suffixes we arrive at
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
199
-
such a cumbrous compound as sev-ish-dir-il-e-me-mek,
u not to be capable of being made to love one another.”
Tenses and moods are indicated in the same manner.
And there is a second, indirect conjugation, based on the
union of the several particles with the auxiliary u to be.”
In this manner many minute shades of meaning can be
expressed. Yet all agglutinative languages are not equally
capable in this respect. Thus the Manclm is nearly as
bare as the Chinese, while the Finnish and the Dravidian
are exceedingly rich. In these languages there is no in-
flectional variation; every word rigidly preserves its
integrity of form. Nor do the particles become welded
to the root, and lose their separate individuality, as in
Aryan speech. Each seems to exist as a distinct integer
in the mind. The only change of form admissible is a
euphonic one, in which the vowels of the suffixes vary to
conform to those of the root. Thus “ to love,” is sev-mek;
“ to write,” is yctz-mcik, —mek becoming mak in harmony
with the variation in the root-vowel. This change of
vowel is destitute of inflectional significance.
AVe have yet to deal witli the final series of languages,
— those organized on wdiat is known as the inflectional
method, in which language has attained its highest devel-
opment and is employed by the most advanced of human
races. Here, however, we have two types of language to
consider,—those known as the Aryan, and the Semitic:
the first, the method employed by the Xanthochroic divi-
sion of the Caucasians; the second, that in use by the
Arabs and other Semites of southwestern Asia.
It is of interest in this connection to perceive how greatly
the Aryan languages have prevailed over those spoken
by Yfelanochroic man, despite the probable great excess
200
THE ARYAN RACE.
in numbers of the latter. Of distinctive Melanochroic
tongues, the only ones now in existence are the Basque
dialect of Spain, and the languages of the Semites and
Egyptians, the only Melanochroic peoples who escaped
conquest by and assimilation with the Xanthochroi.
It is assumed by many philologists, and not denied by
others, that the Aryan and Semitic types of language are
Inflectional in the same general sense, and that they may
have been derived from one original method of speech,
from which the}" have since developed in unlike directions.
l"et the differences between these two types of speech are
so radical, and the character of their inflectionalism so
essentially different, that it seems far more probable that
they have been separate since their origin, and represent
two totally distinct lines of development from the root-
speech of primitive man.
The common characteristic of Semitic and Aryan speech
is their power of verbal variation. There is no tendency
to preserve the integrity of form of their words, as in
other linguistic types. The root readily varies ; and this
variation is not euphonic, but indicates a change of mean-
ing. Similar variations take place in the suffixes, particu-
larly in Aryan speech ; and the word-compound is welded
into a single persistent word, whose elements cease to
remain distinct in thought. But aside from this common
principle of inflection, the Semitic and Aryan languages
differ widely in character, and display no other signs of
relationship.
This is what naturally might have been expected if the
Melanochroic and Xanthochroic types of mankind were
the offspring of different original races, and only mingled
after their methods of speech had become well developed.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
201
The steps of progress of Semitic speech have not been
traced, and this linguistic method as yet 3Tields little or
no evidence concerning the origin of the Melanochroi.
The line of development of Aiyan speech is more evident.
In its most archaic form it is but a step removed from the
agglutinative Mongolian type of language, and the latter
could readily be changed into an inflectional type closely
resembling the Aryan by a single step forward in devel-
opment. This fact is in close accordance with the infer-
ence drawn in our first chapter,—that the Xanthochroi are
an outgrowth from the Mongolian race. In some of the
agglutinative tongues the principle of word-synthesis is
carried to an extreme only surpassed in the American dia-
lects, and compounds of ponderous length are produced.
The most archaic forms of Aryan speech greatly resemble
these in the extent to which synthesis is carried, and only
differ in that their root-forms have become flexible, and
that thus a new method of variation of meaning has been
introduced, and one which adds the important principle of
verbal analysis to the original one of synthesis. Thus in
language, as in other particulars, the Xanthochroic Aryans
seem a direct derivative from the Mongolian race.
If now we come to Semitic speech, we meet with a type
of language which displays no affinity to Mongolian or
Aryan speech, and indicates a distinct origin and line of
development. The suffixes and affixes which form such
essential elements of the Aryan languages are almost un-
known to the Semitic. They are used, indeed, but only
to a slight extent and as a secondary expedient. The
method of word-compounding, which is so widely used in
all the languages we have so far considered, is almost
absent from the Semitic type, which in this respect fails
202
THE ARYAN RACE.
to come lip to the level even of the Chinese. The ruling
principle in Semitic speech is inflectionalism pure and
simple. It is characterized by an internal or vowel inflec-
tion of the root, which has proved so valuable an expedient
as greatly to reduce the necessity of word-compounding,
and render the use of suffixes and affixes unimportant.
The distinction between Aryan and Semitic inflection be-
comes thus clearly outlined. The former possesses vowel-
inflection of the root to a slight degree. Yet this seems
principally of modern origin, while the use of the suffix is
the ruling grammatical expedient. On the contrary, in
Semitic speech vowel-inflection rules supreme, and word-
compounding is so little used that it perhaps formed no
part of the original linguistic idea, but is of later
introduction.
To so great an extent do the vowels of the Semitic root
change, and so persistent are the consonants, that the lat-
ter are considered as the actual root, there being no basic
root-forms with persistent vowel or vowels. A Semitic
root thus usually consists of three consonants, and changes
its significance with eveiy variation in the vocalization of
these consonants. There is some reason to believe that
originally the roots contained two consonants only; but
at present the three consonants are almost invariably
present.
As an illustration we may offer the frequently quoted
Arabic root q-t-l, which has the general sense of “kill-
ing.” The signification of this root is variously limited by
the vowels used. Thus qatala signifies “ he kills ; ” qutilct,
u he was killed ; ” qutilu, “ they were killed ; ” uqtcd, “ to
kill; ” qatil, “ killing ; ” iqtcd, u to cause killing ; ” quad,
“murder;” qitl, “enemy;” qutl. “murderous;” and so
THE DEVELOPMENT OE LANGUAGE.
203
on through numerous other variations. It may readily be
seen how essentially this linguistic method differs from the
Mongolian and the Aryan, with their intricate use of suf-
fixes. In the Semitic not only special modifications of
sense, but the grammatical distinctions of tense, number,
person, gender, etc., are indicated in the same manner.
The system is extended to cover almost every demand of
language. Each Arabic verb has theoretically fifteen con-
jugations, of which ten or twelve, each with its passive
form, are in somewhat common use. Suffixes, prefixes,
and even infixes are moderately employed, but Semitic
words never add ending to ending to the formation of long
and intricate compounds, as in Aryan and Mongolian
speech.
The Semitic languages, comprising the Hebrew and
Arabic, the ancient Assyrian, Phoenician, etc., are re-
markable for their rigidity. For centuries they persist
with scarcely a change. This seems, indeed, a necessary
consequence of their character. The root is the most un-
changing of verbal forms, and the root is the visible skel-
eton of every Semitic word. Hardly a single compound
Semitic word exists, while variation of form takes place
with exceeding slowness.
The Semitic type of language thus points to the speech
of primitive man as directly as does the Chinese. It is
root-language to a veiy marked extent, and does not oc-
cupy the high position in linguistic development which is
often ascribed to it. Its superiority to the Chinese consists
in the adoption of a superior expediënt, — that of root-inflec-
tion, which served all linguistic purposes, and checked fur-
ther development by rendering unnecessary the employment
of other expedients, as in the remaining types of speech.
204
THE ARYAN RACE.
It has consequently retained its archaic method with rigid
persistency.
The Melanochroic people of Africa possess what is usu-
ally considered a distinct tyTpe of language, known as the
Hamitic, and spoken by the ancient Egyptians, the modern
Copts, and by the Berbers of the Sahara region from Egypt
to the Atlantic. These languages are related to the Semitic
family. Many of their roots are similar to Semitic roots, and
in grammatical structure there are marked traces of Semitic
affinity. Yet there are characteristics differing from the
Semitic. It may be that the two types of speech were de-
rived from a single source and have developed somewhat
differently. The Egyptian language is monosyllabic, and
its forms are almost as rigid and archaic in structure as
those of the Chinese. This monosyllabilism has been
traced by some writers to a Nigritian source. The mono-
syllabic character pertains to several of the Negro lan-
guages ; and the fact that their vocabularies differ from
the Egyptian proves nothing, since savage vocabularies
often change with great rapidity.
This suggestion is in accordance with the idea advanced
in regard to the origin of the Melanochroic race. In fact,
our consideration of the languages of mankind leads to
some interesting conclusions. The two primitive races,
the Mongolian and the Negro, probably- both used origin-
ally a root-method of speech. Each of them, according to
our view of the case, developed into a very- ancient civiliza-
tion, — the Chinese and the Egyptian. These civilizations
came into existence ere language had advanced far beyond
its archaic root-condition ; and in the adaptation of this
imperfect method of speech to the needs of man in his
earliest civilized stage, roots continued the main constit-
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
205
uent of language, and were variously dealt with to express
the multitude of new ideas that arose. The root-language
from which came that of Egypt may have, in another re-
gion, developed the highly effective system of root-inflec-
tion of Semitic speech. Alike in the Semitic and the
Hamitic linguistic types, the use of suffixes and affixes
prevails to a limited extent; and in this respect they are
in harmony with the Nigritian languages, —their possible
ancestral stock, — in which the agglutinative principle has
attained some slight development. But the separation of
these several types must have taken place at a very remote
date, while language was yet but little developed beyond
its archaic stage.
In the Mongolian languages root-inflection failed to ap-
pear, and the principle of word-compounding took its place
as the ordinary expedient. We have traced this line of
development of language through its arrested stage in
Chinese, and its unfoldment in American and Mongolian
speech, to its culmination in Aryan,— a linguistic type which
seems to be in direct continuity with the Mongolian agglu-
tinative method. This consideration leads to the same
conclusion which we reached in studying the races of man-
kind. We seem to perceive two original races, the Mongo-
lian and the Negroid, each with its archaic type of speech,
closely resembling each other originally, but pursuing differ-
ent lines of development, the former reaching its final stage
in the speech of Xanthochroic man,— the highest outcome of
the Mongolian race ; the latter in the speech of the Semites,
— the highest outcome of the Negroid race. It remains, in
conclusion of this chapter, to consider the development of
the Aryan type of speech, — the most effective instrument
of intellectual expression yet attained by man.
206
THE ARYAN RACE.
In the Aryan languages alone has verbal analysis be-
come a prominent characteristic. In the Semitic tongues
there is no analysis, and almost no synthesis. The same
may be said of the Chinese and its cognate dialects. In
the other languages of Asia, and those of Europe and Amer-
ica, synthesis is a prevailing characteristic, it reaching its
culmination in the interminable American compounds. It
is less declared in the Mongolian tongues, but in none of
them does word-analysis appear. This is only found as an
active principle in the Aryan of all the families of speech.
In the Aryan languages it has always been a ruling char-
acteristic, though it is not strongly declared in the most
archaic of these dialects. No tendency to preserve the
integrity of form in words exists, and abrasion has gone
steadily on, reducing the length of verbal elements, and
wearing down or breaking up compound words into mono-
syllables, until some Aryan tongues have gained a moiio-
syllabilism approaching that of the Chinese. It is this
analytic tendency which has produced and constitutes the
Aryan method of inflection, and in which it is strongly con-
trasted with the vowel-inflection of Semitic speech.
From its origin, the Aryan type of speech has manifested
the double power to build up and to break down, and these
powers have been continually in exercise. It is an inter-
esting fact, however, that the building-up or word-com-
bining tendenc}7 long continued the more active, and yielded
such highly complex inflectional languages as the Sanscrit
and the Greek. The variation from the Mongolian method •
was not yet decided, and the synthetic principle continued
in the ascendency. But throughout the succeeding period,
down to the present time, the abrading or anatytic tendency
has been the more active, and languages of very simple
THE DEVELOPMENT OE LANGUAGE.
207
structure have arisen. This is most strikingly the case in
English speech, but it is also strongly declared in the Latin
derivative languages, in modern Persian and Hindu, and to
some extent in modern Greek and German. It appears
to have met with most resistance in Slavonic speech, in
which the synthetic tendency has vigorously retained its
ascendency.
In all the ancient Aryan tongues the use of word-com-
bination for grammatical expression was vitally active.
Highly complex languages arose, which are often spoken
of with an admiration as if they had attained the perfection
of linguistic structure, and as if modern languages were
barbarous in comparison. And yët they are superior to
agglutinative speech only in the fact that they permit
verbal variation. They are cumbersome and unwieldy to
modern tongues, which have become fitted to the use of a
simpler and swifter speech.
No sooner did the vigor of word-combination grow inac-
tive, checked probably by the complexity it had evolved,
than the analytic tendency became prominent, and began
to break down the cumbrous compound words into their
elements. The pronoun was separated from the verb.
Particles were torn off and used separately. Auxiliaries
came into more frequent use. Analysis rose into active
competition with synthesis. Yet this did not proceed
rapidly in the ancient historic period. That was an age of
literary cultivation, in which language became controlled
by standards of authority, and its variation was greatly
checked. The most active analytic change was that dis-
played by the Latin, the speech of a highly practical people,
who were more attracted to ease and convenience of utter-
ance than to philosophic perfection of grammatical method.
208
THE ARYAN RACE.
As the synthetic principle had originated during the
primal period of Aryan barbarism, and reached its highest
development during the ancient era of literary cultivation,
so a second period of barbarism seemed essential to any
rapid action of the analytic principle. This period came.
The ancient civilizations vanished, and a long-continued era
of mental gloom overspread the Aryan world. Through-
out this Middle-Age period the restraining influence of
literature ceased to act. Nearly all the literary cultivation
that remained was restricted to the classical Latin and
Greek in the West, and Sanscrit in the East. Every check
to dialectical change was removed, and language varied
with the utmost activity.
This variation, in Europe, was greatly aided by the for-
cible mingling of peoples speaking unlike dialects. In
France, Italy, and Spain the Latin became exposed to the
influence of barbarian invaders accustomed to a different
speech. The complex words, with their intricate signifi-
cance, proved a burden to these new speakers; they
became broken up into their elements.1 AYlien, at a later
period, the minds of men became again cultivated, and
thought regained some of its vanished powers, the analytic
tendency held its own ; the old synthetic process had lost
its force. Auxiliaries and words of relation came more and
1 Philologists believe that a barbarous Latin, analogous to the jargons
known as Pigeon English and Lingua Franca, became the medium of
communication between the conquerors and their subjects, the gram-
matical perfection of the classic Latin disappearing, and being replaced
by a linguistic method of great simplicity. Similar conditions may have
attended the mingling of dissimilar languages in England, Persia, and
elsewhere; yet such an influence could hut have accelerated what seems
the natural tendency of the Aryan type of language toward analytic
methods of speech, since this has shown itself in places and periods in
which no such specially favoring influence existed.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
209
more into use. Complex ideas, instead of being condensed
into single words, as of old, were expressed by groups of
words, each of which constituted a separate element of the
idea. A distinct and highly valuable step forward in the
evolution of language had been gained. As in ancient writ-
ing the characters at first expressed ideas, then words and
syllables, and finally alphabetic sounds, so thought became
divided into its prime elements, and instead of spoken
words expressing complete ideas, as in American speech,
or sectional parts of ideas, as in agglutinative and early in-
flectional speech, they became reduced into the component
elements of ideas. A sort of chemical analysis of thought
had taken place. Thought had, if we may so express it,
been reduced to its alphabetic form.
-
This, the highest, and probably the final, stage in the
evolution of language, has nowhere gained its complete
development. In some languages, as in the modern Ger-
man, which remained unaffected by transplantation and
mixture with a foreign tongue, the synthetic principle is
still vigorously active. The analytic has gained its fullest
development in modern English. This tendency, indeed,
was strongly at work upon the Anglo-Saxon long before
its intermixture with foreign elements. Of all Aryan
dialects it showed the most active native inclination to
analysis. The reduction of words to monosyllables, the
loss of inflectional expedients, and the use of separate
auxiliaries, pronouns, prepositions, etc., made considera-
ble progress in the long dark period before the Norman
Conquest. This latter event intensified the change of
method. The forced mingling of two modes of speech,
each already tending to analysis, and each with but little
literary cultivation, could not but have an important effect.
11
210
THE ARYAN RACE.
The synthetic forms rapidly decreased, and there finally
issued a language of elementary structure, largely mono-
syllabic, almost devoid of inflection, and to some extent
displaying a reversion to the root-stage of human speech.
Such is the English of to-day, — the most complete out-
come of linguistic anatysis yet reached, the highest stage
attained in the long pathway of verbal evolution. At first
glance it seems to have moved backward instead of for-
ward. It has approached the Chinese in its loss of inflec-
tion, its monosyllabilism, and its partial replacement of
the grammatical by the syntactical arrangement of the
sentence. Yet this is no real reversion. Our pride in
the richness of Aryan speech as compared with the poverty
and imperfection of the Chinese is apt to blind us to the
fact that the Chinese system has features of decided value.
Similar features have been gained by English speech,
while none of the actual advantages of inflection have been
lost. In the English we perceive a decided advance
toward that simplicity of conditions which marks all
highest results. Nearly every inflectional expedient which
could be spared, or be replaced by an analytic expedient,
has been cast off. The inflection of nouns has almost
vanished. That of adjectives has quite disappeared.
Only in the pronouns does inflection partly hold its own.
The inflectional conjugation of verbs is reduced to a mere
shadow of its former self. The utterly useless gender-
distinctions which yet encumber the languages of Con-
tinental Europe have absolutely vanished.
Nearly all these incubi of language have been got rid of
in English, which has moved out of the shadow of the past
more fully than any other living tongue. It has in great
measure discarded what was valueless, and kept what was
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
211
valuable in inflectional speech, adopting an analytic expe-
dient wherever available, though freely using the principle
of synthetic combination of words where the latter yielded
any advantage. It stands in the forefront of linguistic
development, possessed of the best of the old and the
new, having certain links of affinity with every cultivated
type of language that exists, rid of all useless and cum-
bersome forms, yet possessed of a flexibility, a mingled
softness and vigor of tone, a richness of vocabulary, and a
power of expressing delicate shades of thought, in which
it is surpassed by none, and equalled by few of existing
languages.
With a brief comparison of the different Aryan lan-
guages this chapter may close. Of all these the Sanscrit
of the Vedas is regarded as the most primitive form, the
one nearest the original Aryan, as the Vedas themselves
are the most ancient record of Aryan thought. It has
preserved many archaic forms which are lost elsewhere,
and without its aid our knowledge of the ancient conditions
of Aryan life would be much reduced. Its syntax is com-
paratively simple, the dominant ancient method of word-
composition taking its place. Its grammatical forms are
very full and complete ; yet in the modern Hindu dialects
the usual reversal of this condition appears. These dia-
lects are marked by an active analytical tendency.
The language of the Zend A vesta of the Persians has
strong marks of affinity to the Vedic dialect. In some
respects it is more archaic; yet as a whole it is younger
in form, the A vestas being of more recent production than
the Pig Veda. In modem Persian, however, the analytic
tendency is very strongly declared, — more so, perhaps,
than in any language except the English, which it resembles
212
THE ARYAN RACE.
in the simplicity of its grammar. It has even gone so far
as to lose all distinction of gender in the personal pronoun
of the third person. Yet it is said to be a melodious and
forcible language. Its great degree of analytic change is
probably due to the extensive mixture of races that has
taken place on Persian soil.
In regard to the European languages, many efforts have
been made to class them into sub-groups. Thus one
author ranks the Greek, another the German, another the
Slavonic, as nearest the Indo-Persian. One brings the
Celtic nearer than the Greek to the Latin, while the more
common opinion makes it wholly independent. Of these
schemes nothing more need be said, since nothing satisfac-
tory has yet come of them. The Celtic dialects have
certain peculiarities not shared by other members of the
Aryan family, and are ordinarii}7 looked upon as the most
aberrant group. The grammar, indeed, displays features
which seem to indicate a non-Aryan influence. The incor-
poration of the pronoun between the verb and its prefixes
in Irish speech has been imputed by Professor Bliys to a
Basque influence. Some other peculiarities exist which
tend to indicate that the aborigines with whom the Celts
mingled exercised a degree of influence upon their method
of speech.
Of the Teutonic division, the most striking peculiarity is
the possession of the strong, or vowel conjugation, such as
wre have, for instance, in the grammatical variations of
form in u sing,” 4 ‘ sang,” and “sung.” In this respect
the Teutonic makes an approach to the Semitic method
of inflection, though the principle with it is probably of
recent origin. Of the Letto-Slavic group, the Lithuanian
is marked by a highly archaic structure. In some few
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE.
213
points its grammar is of older type than even the Sanscrit.
The Slavonic dialects are characterized by phonetic and
grammatical complexity and a great power of forming
agglutinative compounds. The indication of language is
that the Slavonians have been the least exposed to foreign
influence, and are the nearest to the primitive Aryans and
to their probable Mongolian ancestors, of any section of
the race. As an instance, Sayce1 quotes from the Russian
the two words Bez boga, “ without God.” These can be
fused into one word, from which, by the aid of suffixes,
we obtain bezbozhnui, “godless;” from this is gained
the noun bezbozhnik, “ an atheist,” then the verb bezboz-
hnichut, “to be an atheist;” with a host of derivatives,
of which may be named bezbozhnichestvo, “ the condition
of being an atheist,” and bezbozhnichestvovcU, “ to be in
the condition of being an atheist.” Certainly the Russian
has lost none of the ancient richness of the synthetic
method, or descended into what classicists regard as the
base abyss of analytic speech. The Finns, with whom
the Russians are so mingled in blood, could hardly present
an instance of synthesis more complex than the last named.
This is precisely the condition we should expect to find in
the home-staying section of the Aryan race.
It is to the ancient Greek that we must look for the
most logical and attractive unfoldment of the inflectional
method. Though eminently capable of forming compounds,
it is free from the extravagance displayed by the Sanscrit
in this direction, while its syntax has reached a high level
of development. Finally, in the Latin, as already re-
marked, the analytical grammatical tendency is indicated
in a stronger degree than in any other ancient Aryan
1 Introduction to the Science of Language, ii. 95.
214
THE ARYAN RACE.
tongue. This has been carried forward through the line
of its descendants, the Romance languages of southwestern
Europe, and is particularly displayed in the French, in
which the spoken has run far beyond the written language
in its tendency to verbal abrasion. As regards grammati-
cal analysis, however, the English, as already remarked,
has gone farther than any modern language, and is only
less bare of inflectional forms than its very remote cousin,
the Chinese. And it may be said, in conclusion, that the
English, while the most advanced in development, has
become the most widespread of Aryan languages; it is
spoken by large populations in every quarter of the earth;
and if any modern language is to be the basis of the future
speech of mankind, the English seems the most probable,
both from its character and its extension, to attain that
high honor.
IX.
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
HE assertion that the Aryans are intellectually su-
perior to the other races of mankind may be held
as not proved by what wre have yet related concern-
ing them. In the growth of the primitive conditions of
religion, statecraft, industry, language, etc., there was no
individual action. These were all results of involuntary
evolution, not of purposive activity of the intellect. The
democratic character of the Aryan political system, for in-
stance, naturally arose from a primitive stage very closely
resembling that attained by the American Indians. The
subsequent spirit of liberty' of the Aryans seems largely
due to the fact that there had also developed among them
a democratic or individual religious system, and that, in
consequence, there existed no strongly organized and influ-
ential priesthood, as elsewhere, to hold their souls in cap-
tivity. Their village community system was a natural
result of the fact that they became agricultural ere any
progress in political organization had been made. The
same result arose from the same conditions in America.
In the primitive agricultural civilizations of Egypt and
China, on the contrary, the political organization prob-
ably preceded the development of agriculture, and patri-
archism became established. The same thought applies to
the Aryan language. Its superiority may be due to the
216
THE ARYAN RACE.
fact that out of the several possible methods of speech-
evolution the Allans chanced to adopt the one most capa-
ble of high development, and which has, in consequence,
continued to unfold its capabilities while the other types
have long since reached a stage of rigid specialization.
And yet all this must be more than the effect of mere
chance. It would be very surprising if a single race should
have blundered into the best methods of human develop-
ment in all directions. Though in regard to the matters
so far considered there is no probability that individuals
exercised any important voluntary control over the devel-
opment of institutions, yet the collective intellect of the
Aryans could not have been without its directive force.
It undoubtedly served as a rudder to guide the onward
progress of the race and prevent this from becoming the
mere blind drift of chance. This much we clearly perceive,
— that the Aryans nowhere entered into a rigidly special-
ized state. In all the unfoldment of their institutions they
pursued that mid line of progress which alone permits
continued development. If we compare the only one of
the non-Aryan civilizations that has survived to our time,
the Chinese, with those of Aryan origin, this fact will be-
come evident. In all respects, in language, politics, relig-
ion, etc., the Chinese early attained a condition of strict
specialization, and their progress came to an end. For
several thousand }Tears they have remained stagnant, ex-
cept in the single direction of industrial development, in
which some slow progress has been made. Butin all these
respects the Aryans have continued unspecialized, and their
development has been steadily progressive. This progress
yet actively continues ; while there is no hope for China,
except in a complete disruption of its antique system and
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
217
a deep infusion of Aryan ideas into the Chinese intellect.
This general Aryan superiority is indicative of a highly
active and capable intellect, even though no one mind ex-
ercised a controlling influence. The general mentality of
the race, the gross sum of Aryan thought and judgment,
must have guided the course of Aryan evolution and kept
our forefathers from those side-pits of stagnation into
which all their competitors fell. During its primitive era
the Aryan race moved steadily forward unto a well-devised
system of organization which formed the basis of the great
development of modern times.
It is our purpose now, however, to consider the unfold-
ment of the intellect at a higher stage, — that in which indi-
viduality came strongly into play, single men emerged from
the mass of men, and great minds brought their strength to
bear upon the movement of human events. It is here that
the superiority of the Aryan intellect makes itself first
specially apparent. The mentality of the race developed
with remarkable rapidity, and yielded a series of lofty con-
ceptions far beyond the products of any other race of man-
kind. A brief comparison of the attainments of the ancient
Aryan intellect with the mental work of contemporary na-
tions cannot fail to show this clearly. ^Ye shall here
concern ourselves with the philosophical productions of
the race, before considering their more general literary
labors.
As already said, the human intellect is primarily made
up of two great divisions, the reason and the imagination,
which underlie its more special characteristics. Reason is
based on the practical, imagination on the emotional, side
of thought. These are the conditions which we find in a
specially developed state in the two most distinguishable
218
THE ARYAN RACE.
primary races of man, the Mongolian and the Negro. The
Mongolian is practical man, the Negro emotional man. In
each of these two races the quality named is present in a
marked degree, while the other quality has attained only
a minor development. The same rule applies to the two
race-divisions of the Caucasians, considered as derivatives
respectively of the two original races. The pure Xantho-
chroi strongly display the Mongolian practicality ; the pure
Melanochroi the Negro emotional excitability. Yet the
one has unfolded into reason, the other into imagination.
But for the complete development of these high faculties
a mingling of the two sub-races seemed requisite. The
practical mental turn of the Xanthochroi needed to be
roused and invigorated by an infusion of the excitable
fancy of the South ; the fanciful mentality of the Melano-
chroi to be subdued and sobered by an infusion of the
practical judgment of the North. As a result arose the
mingled reason and imagination of the Aryan intellect,
each controlling, yet each invigorating the other, until
through their union mentality has reached the acme of its
powers, and human thought has made the whole universe
its field of activity.
Of the non-Aryan civilizations which have attempted to
enter the field of philosophy, three only need be named, —
the Chinese, the Egyptian, and the Babylonian. As for the
American civilizations, they were when destroyed still in
the stage of mythology. Everywhere, indeed, mythology
appears as the result of the earliest effort of the human
mind to explain the mysteries of the universe. The forces
and forms of Nature are looked upon as supernatural be-
ings, with personal histories and man-like consciousness
and thought. This is but little displayed by the practical
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
219
Chinese, who had not imagination enough to devise a
mythology. We find it much more strongly manifested by
the Egyptians, who had much of the fervor of the Melano-
chroic fancy.
It was with the detached and often discordant mytholo-
gie figments, produced through a long era of god-making,
that philosophy first concerned itself. When men had
passed through the ancient era of blind worship of the
elements, and begun to think about the theory of the
universe which had grown up involuntarily during the long
preceding centuries, they were not slow to perceive its in-
congruity. Everywhere gods crowded upon gods. Their
duties and attributes clashed and mingled. Their names
flowed together. Their histories overlapped each other.
All was utter confusion and discord of ideas. It was very
apparent that there must be error somewhere. Heaven
and earth could not be governed in this chaotic fashion.
Some order must exist beneath this interminable show of
disorder.
It is not difficult to understand how this confused intri-
cacy had arisen. There is reason to believe that in ancient
Arya, though many gods were recognized, each worshipper
addressed himself to but one deity at a time, whom he
looked upon as supreme, and whom he invested with all
the deific attributes. This system, named “ henotheism ”
by Max Müller, is the one v'e find in -the hymns of the
Rig Veda. In succession the different gods of the Aryan
pantheon are supreme deities to these antique singers.1
1 “It would be easy to find, in the numerous hymns of the Vedas,
passages in which almost every single god is represented as supreme and
absolute. Agni is called ‘Ruler of the Universe.’ Indra is celebrated
as the strongest god. It is said of Soma that ‘ he conquers every one.’ ”
— Max Muller.
220
THE ARYAN RACE.
Men’s minds seemed not sufficiently expanded actually to
grasp the thought of more than one god at a time, though
they acknowledged the existence of many. This ascription
of the various duties, powers, and attributes of the deity to
so many different beings, necessarily produced considerable
confusion, which increased with the growth of mythologie
fancies. It grew with particular rapidity in Greece, since
the actively commercial Hellenes imported new gods from
Phoenicia, Ass}wia, and Egypt, and mingled them -with the
tenants of the ancient Aryan pantheon, until the confusion
of ideas became somewhat ludicrous.
-
It is interesting to find that in the earliest efforts of men
to obtain a philosophical idea of the universe the thinkers
were still ardent believers in mythology, and their efforts
were limited to an attempt to divide the duties of celestial
government among the several deities, and introduce order
into the deific court. This stage of thought we find vaguely
indicated in Egypt and Babylonia, and more definitely in
Greece ; but it yielded no important results in any of these
regions. The disorder was too great, and the mingling of
the deific stories too intricate, to admit of any success in
their rearrangement. In Egypt and Greece, indeed, thought
soon passed beyond this stage ; the gods were left to the
unquestioning worship of the people, and thinkers began
to devise systems of philosoph}T outside the lines of the old
mythology. The same was the case in India ; but nothing
that can be called a philosophy of the universe arose among
the Semites. Certain highly fanciful cosmological ideas
were devised ; but the religious system remained largely in
the henotheistic stage. Of the superior gods of the old
mythology, each Semitic nation selected one as its supreme
deity, or perhaps raised to this honor its own divine ancestor
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
221
after his ancestral significance had become greatly dimmed.
These supreme deities became each the Lord, the King, the
Ruler. The cloak of myth fell from their mighty limbs,
and left them standing in severe and unapproachable
majest}", —the sublime rulers of the universe, for whom it
would have been sacrilege to invent a history, and to whom
there was left nothing of human frail t}7, and little of human
sympathy. Such was the course of Semitic thought. It
devised no philosophy, yet it evolved, as its loftiest pro-
duct, a strict monotheism, — a conception of the deity that
grew the more sublime as it divested itself of imaginative
details.
In two branches of the Aryan people the effort to organ'
ize mythology and work over this old S3Tstem of belief into
a consistent theory of the universe attained some measure
of success. These were the Persians and the Teutons.
The Persian system, indeed, which grew up among the
followers of Zoroaster, dealt but little with the old mythol-
ogy, but devised a new one of its own. Yet its philosophy
was largely mythological, and it bears a resemblance to the
Teutonic so marked as to make it seem as if some of their
common ideas were of ancient Aiwan origin. These two
philosophies of mytholog}7, the onl}7 complete ones that
have ever been devised, are of sufficient interest to warrant
a brief description.
The Persian sj^stem is only partly to be ascribed to
Zoroaster. Its complete unfoldment is the work of the
thinkers of a later period. Several of the steps of its
development are yet visible. A comparison of the A vesta
with the Vedas shows interesting indications of a religious
schism between the Hindu and the Iranian sects. The
Devas, the “ shining ones,’’ of the Hindus became the
222
THE ARYAN RACE.
Daevas, the “ demons,” of Iran. On the contrary, the
Hindu demons, the Asuras, became the Ahuras, the gods
of the Iranians. One of the Ahuras, a Mazda, or world-
maker, was chosen as the special deity of the Zoroastrian
faith, which originally had a monotheistic character, — or
rather it was in principle dualistic, since Ahura-Mazda com-
prised two natures, and combined within one personality
the double deific attributes of good and evil.
At a later period these attributes unfolded into two
distinct beings, and a new supreme god was imagined,
— Zarvan Akarana (Boundless Time), the primal, creative
power. The m}Tthologic philosophy, as finally completed,
was briefly as follows. In the beginning the Absolute
Being, Zarvan Akarana, produced two great divine beings,
— Aliura Mazda, and Angra Mainyas, or, as ordinarily
named, Ormuzd and Ahriman. These were respectively the
lords of light and darkness,—Ormuzd a bright, wise, all-
bountiful spirit; Ahriman an evil and dark intelligence.
From the beginning an antagonism existed between them,
which was destined to continue until the end of time. Zar-
van Akarana next created the visible world, destined to
last twelve thousand years, and to be the seat of a terrible
contest between the great deities of light and darkness.
Ormuzd manifested his power by creating the earth and
the heavens, the stars and the planets, and the Fravashi,
the host of bright spirits ; while Ahriman, his equal in cre-
ative ability, produced a dark world, in opposition to the
world of light, and peopled it with an equal host of evil
spirits. This contest between the two great deities was to
last until the end of time. Yet the Spirit of Gloom was
inferior in wisdom to the Spirit of Light, and all his evil
actions finally worked to aid the victory of Ormuzd.
THE AGE OE PHILOSOPHY.
223
Thus the bull, the original animal, was destroyed by
Ahriman; but from its carcass man came into being under
the creative command of Ormuzd. This new race in-
creased, while the earth became peopled with animals and
plants. Yet for every good creation of Ormuzd, Ahriman
created something evil. The wolf was opposed to the
dog, noxious to useful plants, etc. Man became tempted
by Ahriman in the form of a serpent, and ate the fruit
which the tempter brought him. In consequence, he fell
from his original high estate, and became mortal and
miserable. Yet the human race retained the power of
free-will: they could choose between good and evil;
and by their choice they could aid one or the other of
the great combatants. Each man became a soldier in the
war of the deities.
Between heaven and earth stretched a great bridge,
Chinvat, over which the souls of the dead must pass.
On this narrow path the spirits of the good were conducted
by Serosh, the archangel who led the heavenly host.
But the evil souls fell from it into the Gulf of Duzahk,
to be tormented by the Daevas. Those whose evil deeds
had not been extreme might be redeemed thence by prayer ;
but the deepest sinners must lie in the gulf until the era
of the resurrection. At the end of the great contest a
terrible catastrophe is to come upon all created things.
Man will be converted from his evil ways. Then will
follow a general conflagration. The earth will melt with
fervent heat, and pour down its molten floods into the
realm of Ahriman. A general resurrection of the dead
will attend this conflagration. In the older portions of
the Avestas this seems to be restricted to the soul; but in
the newer portions the resurrection of the body is indi-
224
THE ARYAN RACE.
cated. The souls are clothed upon by new flesh and
bones; friends recognize each other; the just are divided
from the unjust; all beings must pass through the stream
of fire which is pouring down from the molten earth. To
the good it will feel like a bath of warm milk; but the
wicked must burn in it three da}Ts and nights. Then,
purged of their iniquity, they will be received into heaven.
Afterward Ahriman and all his angels will be purified in
the flames, all evil will be consumed, all darkness ban-
ished, and a pure, beautiful, and eternal earth will arise
from the fire, the abode of virtue and happiness for ever-
more.
It is hardly necessary here to call attention to how great
an extent the Semitic cosmogony and religious myths
are counterparts of this Aryan scheme. It will suffice to
say that the Semites seem to have borrowed everything in
their creed that approached an effort philosophically to
explain the universe. The later Semitic creed, that of
Mohammed, is a medley of pre-existing thought. Even
the Persian bridge of the dead appears in it as A1 Sirat,
the razor-edged road from heaven to earth. The Koran
is full of extravagant fancies, but devoid of original ideas.
It is the outcome of the Arabic type of mind, in which
fancy is exceedingly active, but in which the higher powers
of the reason seem undeveloped.
In the Teutonic myths are displayed a system of the
universe which bears certain striking points of resemblance
to that of Persia, though utterly unlike it in its details.
The general ideas of these myths, indeed, are common to
all the Aryan mythologies, and must have been current
in ancient Arya. Thus the Persian Cliinvat, or Knivad,
the bridge of the dead, is paralleled by the Teutonic Pi-
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
225
frost and the Yedic “path of Yama,” the “cows’ path,”
which passes over the abyss of Tartarus to the land of the
wise Pitris, the fathers of the nation. In this mythical
bridge both the Milky AVay and the rainbow are symbol-
ized. Such was the explanation given to these striking
natural phenomena by our imaginative and unscientific
forefathers.
But with the Teutonic tribes, and particularly with their
Scandinavian section, we have to do with a people very
different in situation and culture from the Persians. The
latter were a partly civilized people, the former fiercely
barbarous. The latter dwelt in a temperate region, the
former in an arctic land, where ice and cold were the
demonic agents of man’s torment. Yet the strong Aryan
intellect stirred in their minds, and from their ancestral
myths they wrought out a coherent system of the universe,
— the wildest and weirdest that it ever entered the brain
of man to conceive. It was mythology converted into phi-
losophy ; but it was the mythology of the barbaric and
warlike North, with the breath of the arctic blasts blow-
ing through it, and the untamed fierceness of the Norman
vikings in its every strain. This S}Tstem, as fortunately
preserved to us in the Eddas of Iceland, and perhaps
mainly of Scandinavian development, may be here briefly
given, omitting its many side-details. Everywhere it is
full of warfare. The soul of man is free to combat with
the powers of Nature. The gods are alwa}Ts at war. Sun-
shine and growth combat with storm and winter. Frost
opposes fire. Light and heat are in endless conflict with
darkness and cold. The Jotuns, the ice-giants, are the
demons of Scandinavia. The forces of the winter every-
where bear down upon those of the summer, and finally
15
226
THE ARYAN RACE.
overwhelm and destroy them. But this battle of the
elements is wrought into a weird story of the conflict of
gods and demons, in which the traces of its origin are
nearly lost.
In the beginning there lay to the south the realm of
Muspell, the bright and gleaming land, ruled by Surtr
of the flaming sword, the swart god. To the north lay
Niflheim, the land of frost and darkness. Between them
was Ginunga-gap, — a yawning chasm, still as the windless
air. From the ice-vapor that rose from Hvergelmir, the
venom-flowing spring of Niflheim, and mingled with the
spark-filled air of Muspell, was born, in Ginunga-gap,
the giant Ymir, the parent of the Jotuns, or frost-giants.
But with Ymir came the primal animal to life, — the cow,
wiiose milk nourished the giant. She licked the salt rime
clumps, and forth came Buri, a great and beautiful being,
the ancestor of the gods. After much gigantic medley the
gods slewr Ymir, wiiose blood drowned all his evil race
except a single pair, wiio escaped, to give rise to a new
Jotun crew. And now the gods began their creative
work. The slain Ymir was flung into the chasm of Gi-
nimga-gap. Here his body formed the earth, his blood
the ocean, his bones the mountains, his hair the trees. The
sky was made from his arched skull, and adorned with
sparks from Muspell. His brain wras scattered in the air,
and became the storm-clouds. A deep sea was caused to
flow around the earth, — the grand, mysterious ocean, the
endless marvel to the Northern mind. The escaped giants
took up their abode in Jotunheim, the frost-realm of the
arctic seas, the ocean’s utmost strand. Between Atgard,
this outer realm, and Midgard, the habitable earth, the
brows of Ymir were stretched as a breastwork against the
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
227
destructive powers. From earth to heaven extended
the rainbow bridge Asbru, the iEsirs’ bridge, or Bifrost,
the “trembling mile.” Every day the gods ride up this
bridge to Asgard, the Scandinavian heaven. They ride to
the Urdar fount, which flows from beneath the roots of the
great ash-tree of life, Yggdrasil, there to take counsel con-
cerning the future from the three maidens — the Fast, the
Preseut, and the Future — who daily sit beside the celestial
fount.
The first human pair were made by the gods from two
trees on the sea-shore ; their names were Ask and Embla.
To them Odin gave spirit, Hoenir understanding, Lodurr
blood and fair complexion. They received Midgard for
their abode. From them sprang the human family. But
in heaven and earth perpetual warfare raged. The gods
and the frost-giants were endlessly at war. But as Aliri-
man was overcome and fettered by Ormuzd, so Loki, the
wolf, the deceiver of the gods, was bound in chains, and
a serpent placed above him to drop venom on his face.
This venom as it dropped was caught by his wife in a
vessel. Only when she went away to empty the vessel
did the poison-drops reach his face. Then he writhed in
his chains, and earthquakes shook the solid globe.
It is fated that all this shall end in a mighty conflict, in
which gods and demons alike shall be slain, and heaven
and earth disappear. Ragnarok, the “Twilight of the
Gods,” shall be ushered in by a winter three years long.
The crowing of three mighty cocks shall proclaim the fate-
ful da}T. Thereat shall the giants rejoice, the great ash take
fire, and all the powers of destruction — wolves, sea-mon-
sters, hell hounds, and the like — rush to the dreadful fray.
Heimdal. the guardian of the rainbow, shall sound his
228
THE ARYAN RACE.
mighty horn to warn the gods, who shall rush to counsel
beneath the tree Yggdrasil, that meanwhile trembles to its
deepest roots. From the East shall come the frost-giants
in a mighty ship, while another ship, made of dead men’s
nails and steered by Loki, brings the troop of ghosts.
Surtr of the flaming sword, the ruler of Muspell, shall
thunder with his swart troop over the bridge of the gods,
his fiery tread kindling it into a consuming flame as he
rides in grim fury to the stronghold of the deities.
Now meet the combatants, — the gods and the heroes of
Valhalla on the one side ; on the other the giant crew, led
by Fenrir the great wolf, the mighty Midgard serpent, the
terrible Loki, and Hela, the goddess of death. Dreadful
is the combat. Odin fights with the wolf, Thor with the
serpent, Freyr with Surtr, Heimdal with Loki. Death
everywhere treads ; Odin, the king of the JEsir, is swal-
lowed into the yawning gape of his monstrous antagonist.
One by one the mighty combatants fall, while Surtr stalks
terribly over the field, spreading everywhere fire and flame.
All is consumed, the stars are hurled from the sky, the
sun and the moon devoured, and the universe sinks in
utter ruin.
Possibly here ended the original myth. It is an ending
in consonance with the grim temper of the vikings of the
North. But as we have it in the Edda, it goes on to a
future state like that of the Persian myth. After the ruin
of Ragnarok a new heaven and earth shall rise from the
sea. Two gods, Vidar and Vali, and a man and woman
shall survive the conflagration and people the new uni-
verse. The sons of Thor shall come with their father’s
hammer and end the war. Balder the beautiful god and
the blind god Hödr shall come up from hell, and a new
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
229
sun, more beautiful than the old, shall gleam in the sky.
This is, briefly told, the Scandinavian scheme of the uni-
verse, — a rude and fierce one, yet instinct with a vigor of
imagination shown nowhere by men of non-Aryan blood.
It is the only pure organization of mythology into a cohe-
rent system that exists; for the Persian myth includes
philosophical ideas which fail to enter into the ruder Scan-
dinavian story of the deeds of the gods, and Greek mythol-
ogy never fairly emerged from its abyss of confusion.
If now we come to consider the mental evolution of
more civilized man, we find everywhere mythology left
for the amusement of the vulgar horde, while the enlight-
ened few devise purely philosophical explanations of the
mystery of the universe. But in comparing the philoso-
phies of the various civilized nations, the Aryans will be
found to soar supremely above the level of all alien peo-
ples. Only two such peoples, Egypt and China, have
devised anything that deserves the title of philosophy; for
nothing of the kind exists in any of the Semitic creeds.
The utmost we find in Babylonia is an effort to form a cos-
mology of strictly mythologie character, — a highly con-
fused affair as imperfectly given by Berosus. The later
attempt made by Mohammed is, so far as it is original,
an absurd tissue of extravagant fancies. There is nothing
to indicate the least native tendency of the Semitic mind
toward philosophy. All their philosophy is borrowed, and
has deteriorated in their hands. It was by stripping the
idea of deity of all mythologie and philosophic figments,
and leaving it in its bare and unapproachable majest}^
that the Semitic intellect reached its highest flight, that
symbolized in the Jehovah of the later Hebrews.
The Egyptian priesthood, on the contrary, appears to
230
THE ARYAN RACE.
have devised a somewhat advanced system of philosophy,
which bears a singular resemblance to that of Brahman-
ism, though very far below it in the power and clearness
of thought displayed. The transmigration hypothesis, and
the theory of emanation and absorption of souls, are both
indicated in the Egyptian system, though vaguely, and
overlaid with mythological absurdities. There is here
none of the clear-cut reasoning of the Hindus, but an un-
certain wandering of thought from which it needs consid-
erable ingenuity to extract the idea it conceals. The
well-known Ritual of the Dead is the source of our
knowledge of these confused ideas. A copy of this work,
more or less complete, was placed in every Egyptian coffin,
while its more important passages were written on the
wraps of the corpse and engraved on the coffin. It was
necessarily so placed, according to their belief, since it
contained the instructions requisite to convey the soul of
the deceased safely past the dangers of the lower world.
Throughout the whole story physical ideas struggle with
metaphysical. The Egyptian mind failed definitely to rise
above the level of the world of sense.
After death the soul descends with the setting sun into
the nether world. There it is examined and its actions
weighed before Osiris and the terrible forty-two judges.
If it can declare that it has committed none of the forty-
two sius, it is permitted to pass on. It has with it in the
• Ritual prayers to open the gates of the various lower
realms, and to overpower opposing spirits and monsters.
It must be able to name everything which it meets, and
to recognize the gods it encounters. Here we have in-
dications that the soul is returning to its natal home, and
recalling its ante-terrestrial memories. All this the Ritual
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
231
-
teaches the spirit, and also provides it with a charm to
unlock the gates that lead to the fields of Ra, the sun-god.
Finally, if the heart prove not too light, and the soul pure,
the members of the body, renewed and purified, are re-
turned to the spirit, and the waters of life are poured upon
it by the goddesses of life and the sky. It finally enters
the realm of the sun, and vanishes in a highly vague iden-
tification with Osiris, or with the deific powers generally.
The idea of metempsychosis also confusedly mingles with
this, and animal-worship seems at the basis of the Egyptian
mythology. The thought of Egypt never fairly rises above
the body. There is no entrance into that pure atmosphere
of soul-existence in which the Hindu philosophers are at
home.
The philosophical system of China is a curious one,
which, however, we can but very briefly describe. It had
a continuous development, its antique basis being in the
mystical symbols of Fu-hi, — a monarch of some such
dubious date as 2800 n. c. These symbols consisted simply
of a whole and a divided line, constituting the diagram
(----,------). These lines were variously combined, so
as to make in all sixty-four combinations. On this strange
arrangement of lines, which very probably was connected
with some ancient s}’stem of divination, an abundance of
thought has been exercised, and the whole S3Tstem of
Chinese philosopli}7 gradually erected. The first great
name in this development is that of Wan "Wang, of about
1150 b. c. Being imprisoned for some political offence,
this antique philosopher occupied himself in studying out
the meaning of these combinations. The result of his
reflections was the Y-King, — among the most ancient
and certainly the most obscure and incomprehensible of all
232
THE ARYAN RACE.
known books. The Y-King comprises four parts. First
are the sixty-four diagrams, each with some name attached
to it; as heaven, earth, fire, etc. Second, are a series of
obscure sentences attached by Wan Waug to these dia-
grams. Third, we have other ambiguous texts by Tcheou-
king, the son of Wan Wang, the Chinese Solomon.
Fourth, are a host of commentaries, many centuries later.
The whole forms an intricate system of philosophy, which
is based on the idea of the duality of all things. The
whole lines represent the strong, the divided lines the weak,
or the active as contrasted with the passive. These indi-
cate two great primal principles,— Ycing, the active, Yin,
the passive, — which owe their origin to the Tai-lceih, the
first great cause. All existence comes from the Yang and
the Yin: heaven, light, sun, male, etc., from the Yang;
earth, darkness, moon, female, etc., from the Yin. This
development of the idea is mainly the work of the later
commentators. Tai-keih, or the grand extreme, is the
immaterial producer of all existence. Yang and Yin are
the dual expression of this principle, — Yang the agency of
expansion, Yin that of contraction. When the expansive
activity reaches its limit, contraction and passivity set in.
Man results from the utmost development of this pulsating
activity and passivity. His nature is perfectly good ; but
if he is not influenced by it, but by the outer world, his
deeds will be evil. The holy man is he with full insight
of this twofold operation of the ultimate principle, and of
these holy men Confucius was the last. Such is the
developed philosophy of the Y-King as expressed by
Choo-tsze (1200 a. d.), — one of the latest of the many
commentators who have sought to unfold the Fu-hi symbols
into a philosophy of the universe.
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
233
Of the best-known Chinese philosophers, Confucius and
Lao-tsze, the system of the former was simply a creed of
morals ; that of the latter was but an unfoldment of the
dual idea. To Lao-tsze the primal principle was a great
something named the Tao, concerning which his ideas seem
exceedingly obscure. Tao was the unnamable, the empty,
but inexhaustible, the invisible, comprising at once being
and not-being, the origin of all things. All things are
born of being. Being is born of not-being. All things
originate from Tao. To Tao all things return. We have
here a vague conception of the emanation philosophy.
The creed of the faith is based on the virtue of passivity.
Not to act, is the source of all power. The passive con-
quers. Passivity identifies one with Tao, and yields the
strength of Tao to the believer. A certain flavor of
Buddhism pervades this theory, and it may have had
its origin in a previous knowledge of the Buddhistic creed
by the philosopher; but it is very far below Buddhism in
distinctness of statement and clearness of thought. Yet
it is remarkable as the highest philosophical product of
the Chinese mind.
If now we come to consider the ancient Aryan philos-
ophies, it is to find ourselves in a new world of thought,
a realm of the intellect that seems removed by a wide gulf
from that occupied by the contemporary peoples of alien
race. These philosophies are the work of two branches of
the Aryans, the Hindu and the Greek, some brief account
of whose systems of thought may be here given.
Of the peoples of the past only four can be said to have
risen, in their highest thought, clearly above the level of
mythology. These were the Chinese and the Hebrews, the
Hindus and the Greeks ; to whom may be added the pupils
234
THE ARYAN RACE.
of the last, the Romans. But of these the first two
named cannot be fairly said to have ever had a mythology.
And of them the Hebrews originated no philosoph}7, while
out of the countless millions of the Chinese race, with
their constant literary cultivation, only one or two phi-
losophers arose ; and their systems of thought, perhaps
devised under Buddhistic inspiration, have been allowed
to decline into blank idolatry or unphilosophical scepticism.
Far different was the case in India. There we find a con-
nected and definite system of philosophy growing up, the
outcome of the thought of a long series of Bralnnanic
priests, grounded in the childlike figments of mythology,
but developing into a manly vigor of reasoning that has
never been surpassed in the circle of metaphysical thought.
It was a remarkable people with whom we are now con-
cerned, — a people that dwelt only in the world of thought,
and held the affairs of real life as naught. This world
was to them but a temporal^ resting-place between two
eternities, a region of probation for the purification of the
soul. With the concerns of the eternities their minds were
steadily occupied, and time was thrust aside from their
thoughts as a base prison into which their souls had been
plunged to purge them of their sins.
Their effort to solve the mystery of existence called forth
an intricate and clearly thought-out conception of the or-
ganization of the universe, in which reason and imagina-
tion were intimately combined, — the latter, however, often
so unchecked and extravagant as to reach heights of un-
told absurdity. The final outcome of this activity of
thought was a philosophical system strikingly like that
reached by the Egyptians, — a dogma of emanation and ab-
sorption, with intermediate stages of transmigration. But
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
235
instead of the vapor-shrouded eternity of Egyptian thought,
we here look into the past and the future of the universe
through a lens of clear transparency.
We have now to deal with a thoroughly pantheistic doc-
trine of the universe, — the abundant fountain of all sub-
sequent pantheism. In the beginning Brahma alone ex-
isted,— an all-pervading, self-existent essence, in which
all things yet to be lay in the seed. This divine progeni-
tor, the illimitable essence of deity, willed the universe into
being from his own substance, created the waters by med-
itation, and placed in them a fertile seed, which developed
into a golden egg. From this egg Brahma, the impersonal
essence, was born into personal being as Brahma, the cre-
ator of all things. We need not here concern ourselves
with the many extravagances of the ardent Hindu im-
agination, that overlaid this conception and the subsequent
work of creation with an endless array of fantastic adorn-
ments, but may keep to the central core of the Brahmanic
philosophy. It will suffice to say that from the imper-
sonal, thus embodied as the personal Brahma, all things
arose, —the heavens, the earth, and the nether realm, with
all their countless inhabitants. All were emanations from
the primal Deity, and all were destined to be eventually
re-absorbed into this deity, so that existence should end, as
it had begun, in Brahma alone. But with this descent from
the infinite had come evil, or imperfection. Though a por-
tion of the divine essence entered into all things, animate
and inanimate, yet all things had become debased and im-
pure. The one perfect being had unfolded into a limitless
multitude of minor and imperfect beings. Such was the
first phase of the mighty cycle of existence. The second
phase was to be one of re-absorption, through which the
236
THE ARYAN RACE.
multitude of separate beings would become lost in the one
eternal being, and Brahma — who had never ceased to
constitute the sole real existence — would regain his pri-
mal homogeneous state.
But divinity had become debased in the forms of men
and animals, angels and demons. How was it to be puri-
fied, and rendered fit for absorption into the divine essence?
In this purification lay the terrestrial part of the Hindu
pantheism. To prepare for re-absorption into Brahma was
the one duty of man. Attention to the minor duties of life
detracted from this. Evil deeds still further debased the
soul. The great mass of mankind died unpurified. But
the divine essence in them could not perish. And in most
cases it had become unfit to inhabit so high a form as the
human body. Therefore it entered, after the death of men,
into the bodies of various animals, into inanimate things,
and even into the demonic creatures of the Hindu hell, in
accordance with its degree of debasement. It must pass,
for a longer or shorter period, through these lower forms
ere it could be fitted to reside again in the human frame.
And after having by purification passed beyond the human
stage, it still had a series of transmigrations to fulfil, in
the bodies of angels and deities, before it could attain the
finality of absorption. To this ultimate, all Nature, from
its highest to its lowest, was endlessly climbing. Every-
thing was kindled by a spark of the divine essence, and all
existence consisted of souls, in different stages of embodi-
ment, striving upward from the lowest hell to the loftiest
stage of divinity.
For these many manifestations of the one eternal soul
there was but one road to purification. This lay through
subjection of the senses, purity of life, and knowledge of
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
237
the deity. Asceticism, mortification of the animal in-
stincts, naturally arose as a resultant of this doctrine.
The virtues of temperance, self-control, and self-restraint
were the highest of human attainments. To reduce the
flesh and exalt the soul was the constant effort of the
ascetic, and to wean the mind from all care for the things
of this life was the true path toward purification. Finally,
knowledge of the deity could come only through a deep
study of the Institutes of religion, rigid observance of its
requirements, and endless meditation on the nature and the
perfections of the ultimate essence,—the eternal deity.
By thus giving the soul a steadily increasing supremacy
over the matter that clogged and shadowed its pure
impulses, in the end it would become utterly freed from
material embodiment, and fitted to enter its final state
of vanishment into the supreme. Just what this final
state signified, whether the soul was or was not to lose all
sense of individuality, is a question wdiose answer is not
very clearly defined; and it is probable that the Hindu
thinkers, bold as they were, shrank before this utterly in-
soluble problem, and left the final abyss uninvaded by their
daring speculations.
It is a grand system of thought which we have here very
imperfectly detailed, an extraordinary one to have been
devised at so early a period, and by a people just emerging
from barbarism into civilization. No higher testimony to
the superiority of the Aryan intellect could be offered than
to bring this clearly outlined cosmical philosophy into com-
parison with the confused, imperfect, and vapory concep-
tions of the Egyptian and the Chinese mind. It must be
said, however, that it offers a conception of man’s obliga-
tions as a citizen of the universe that has proved fatal to
238
THE ARYAN RACE.
the national progress of the Hindu people. From the
Brahman to the outcast, they have remained politically and
socially dormant, their duties to the world to come dwarf-
ing their duties to the world that is, and the realm of
thought overlaying in their lives the realm of action. No
heroes have risen to lead the Hindu people on the path to
nationality or empire, for thinkers and workers alike have
heen lost in the shadow of a dream. The very thought of
history-writing or history-making has not arisen among
them ; and they have yielded with scarce a struggle to a
long array of foreign conquerors, heedless of who ruled
their bodies while their thoughts continued free.
The philosophy here described was, as we have said, the
work of a long line of priestly thinkers, not of any great
lawgiver of the race. In it we have the highest expres-
sion of the endlessly active Hindu intellect. At a later
date, however, the names of several special thinkers
emerge, each devising some variation in the-details, yet
none deviating from the basic principle of the system.
The mystery of the origin of matter was left unaccounted
for in the ancient Vedanta system ; and its actual existence
was afterward denied, it being declared a mere illusion,
arising from the imperfect knowledge of the soul. Kapila,
the founder of the Sankhya school, attempted to overcome
this difficulty by proclaiming the eternal existence of an
unconscious material principle possessed of self-volition
in regard to its own development. From it all matter had
emanated, and into it all matter would be absorbed. By
the side of this material principle existed a primal spiritual
essence, manifold in its nature, and which from the begin-
ning has entered into and animated matter. This spirit-
ual unintelligence is endued with a subtile body consisting
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
239
of intelligence (buclclhi). The Sankhya cleity is a com-
pound of these three elements, — spirit, substance, and
intelligence.
This scheme was followed by that of Patanjali, who
considered the spiritual principle to be possessed of self-
volition, and to exist separate from the co-eternal principle
of matter. But the most striking of these speculative sys-
tems was that of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, and
the final great Hindu philosopher. This system was in the
line of that of Kapila; but it carried the Hindu vein of
thought to its utmost conceivable extension. It denied
the existence of the soul as a substance. No spiritual es-
sence pervaded the body. It held only certain intellectual
attributes, which would perish with it. But the sum of
each individual’s good and evil actions {Karma) would
survive, to migrate through other bodies, until the evil
became eliminated, and only the good remained. As to the
culminating stage of this process, the Nirvana, whether it
signified the final extinction of evil and the vanishment of
good, an utter and eternal nonentity, or embraced the con-
ception of a conscious existence of the absolutely purified
principle of good, — is a question that has been endlessly
debated, and yet remains unsolved. The system made
provision for the natural disappearance of evil; but the
principle of good remained, and would not down at the
command of thought. Probably the founder of the Bud-
dhistic sect was as deepty lost as the Brahmanic philos-
ophers in the abyss of infinity into which his daring
conception had plunged. It is a depth by which all ex-
plorers have been bafiled, and which the plummet of
thought lias ever failed to sound.
In regard to the manifold philosophies of Greece much
240
THE ARYAN RACE.
less need here be said. They are far better known to
readers in general, and are to a large extent philosophies
of the earth rather than schemes of the universe. The
imagination of the Greeks was as bold and active as that
of the Hindus ; but it was far more under the control of
the reasoning faculties, and is always subdued and artistic
where that of the Hindus riots in the wildest extravagance.
The Hindu philosophy directly emerged from the mytho-
logy of the Vedas and the sacrificial observances of the
priests, and the steps of its evolution can yet be traced.
The Greek philosophy had no relation to mythology. The
gods of Greece had become so laden with earthly clay that
they had ceased to be fit subjects for any but the vulgar
belief when philosophy first showed its front on the Ionic
shores. Thus the philosophy of Greece was a completely
new growth. Cutting loose from all preceding thought,
the Grecian intellect endeavored to construct a universe
of its own, on the platform of what it saw and what it
felt.
The various systems devised need be but rapidly run
over, as they are more matters of ordinary knowledge than
is the Hindu philosophy. The Ionic philosophers, Thales
and his successors, endeavored to arrive at a conception of
all existence from a study of the properties of physical
substances, and the Pythagoreans from a like study of
the properties of number. Next came the Eleatics, with
their system of abstraction. Through the denial of the
actuality of visible existence they arrived at a conception
of pure being,—the basis of all appearance. Heraclitus
followed, with his system of the becoming, — the incessant
flow between finity and infinity, being and not-being. To
these succeeded the Atomistic philosophers, to whom
THE AGE OF PHILOSOPHY.
241
matter was the basis of being, and force the cause of
movement. The philosophers here named were gradually
advancing toward a theory of the universe; but it was a
theory built up from the ground, rather than brought down
from the infinite, as with the Hindus, — a scientific rather
than an imaginative evolvement. As yet the idea of a
deific principle had not appeared. This was devised by
Anaxagoras, who placed a world-forming Intelligence by
the side of matter. Yet the idea was only feebly grasped.
This Intelligence existed but as a primary impulse, a mov-
ing force to set the universe in motion. The philosophic
mind of Greece had not yet advanced to the grand out-
reach of Hindu thought.
This material phase of philosophizing was followed by
the mental one of the Sophists and of Socrates. Cutting
loose from the conception of matter as the basis of all
things, they came to that of mind. The Sophists stood
forth as the destroyers of the whole preceding edifice of
thought, and Socrates as the originator of a new system
of philosophy, in which the subjective replaced the objec-
tive, and mind subordinated matter. TYith him virtue and
duty became the great principles of existence, thought was
higher than matter, and morality superior to philosophy.
He gave birth to no cosmology, but he turned the atten-
tion of man to a distinctively new field of speculation.
-
This was deeply worked by Plato, his great disciple,
whose system of Ideas replaced the old systems of things,
and with whom the supreme and all-embracing idea, the
absolute Good, became the God, the divine creator and
sustainer. Finally followed Aristotle, with his strongly
scientific turn of mind and his highly indefinite metaphysi-
cal conception of the fluctuations between Potentiality and
Ifi
242
THE ARYAN RACE.
Actuality, the variation from matter to form, from form-
less matter to pure or immaterial form. To these concep-
tions were added cosmological notions largely derived
from the old mythology. But the value of the thought of
Greece was not so much for its deductive as for its induc-
tive labors. It tended constantly toward a scientific
research into the basis of matter and mind, and never
began by cutting loose from the actual, as in Hindu
thought.
The mental acumen of these two highly intellectual
branches of the ancient Aryans approached equality; but
the real value of their work differed widely, mainly as
a consequence of their different standpoints of thought.
The speculations of the Greeks were based on observed
facts, those of the Hindus on mythological fancies. As a
consequence, the Greeks have worked far more truly for
the intellectual advancement of mankind. If we come to
glance at modern philosophy, a strikingly similar parallel
appears. The Germans, the metaphysicians of the modern
age, have inclined toward the Hindu line of pure deduc-
tion, and built vast schemes of philosophy with little more
solid basis than the doctrine of emanation. The English
and French, on the contrary, have developed the Greek
line of science, and based their philosophies on observed
facts. Their schemes do not tower so loftily as those of
Germany, but they are built on the ground, and not on
the clouds, and are likely to stand erect when the vast edi-
fices of pure metaphysics have toppled over in splendid but
irremediable ruin.
X.
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
IT is not our intention to enter upon the task of a
general review of the vast field of Aryan recorded
thought, but merely to offer a comparative statement of
the literary position of the several races of mankind, in
evidence of the superiority of the Aryan intellect. Lite-
rary labor has been by no means confined to this race.
Every people that has reached the stage of even an im-
perfect civilization has considered its thoughts worthy of
preservation, its heroes worthy of honor, its deeds worthy
of record. But so far as the intellectual value of lite-
rary work is concerned, the Aryans have gone almost
infinitely beyond the remainder of mankind.
All early thought seems naturally to have flowed into
the channel of poetry, with the exception of certain dry
annals which cannot properly be classed as literature.
This poetry, in its primary phase, appears to have been
always lyrical. It was apparently at first the lyric of
worship. This was followed by the lyric of action, and
this, in its highest outcome, by the epic,—the combined
and organized phase of the heroic poem. It is of interest
to find that the Aryans alone can be said to have fairly
reached the final stage of the archaic field of thought,
the epic efforts of other races being weak and inconse-
quent, while almost every branch of the Aryan race rose
to the epic literary level.
244
THE ARYAN RACE.
Of the antique era of the religious lyric little here need
be said. TTe find it in the hymns of the Vedas and of
the Zend-Avesta, in the early traditional literature of
Greece, and in the ancient Babylonian hymns to the
gods, some of which in form and manner strikingly re-
semble the Hebrew psalms. As to the second poetic
period, that of the heroic song, or the record of the
great deeds of the gods and demigods, little trace re-
mains. Heroic compositions, as a rule, have ceased to
exist as separate works, and have either become compo-
nent parts of subsequent epics, or have vanished. As to
valuable epic literature, however, it is nearly all confined
within Aryan limits.
Modern research into the fragmentary remains of the
ancient Babylonian literature has brought to light evi-
dence of a greater activity of thought than we formerly
had reason to imagine. And among the works thus re-
covered from the buried brick tablets of the Babylonian
libraries are portions of a series of mythological poems
of a later date than the hymns. These productions are
considered to form part of an antique and remarkable
poem, with a great solar deity as hero, — an epic centre of
legend into which older lays have entered as episodes.
It appears to have consisted of twelve books, of which
we possess two intact, — the Deluge legend, and that
of the descent of Istar into Hades ; while part of a third
exists, in which is described the war of the seven evil
spirits against the moon. The Assyrians are supposed
to have also had their epic, in imitation of this older
work, and the Semiramis and Ninas of the Greeks are
considered by M. Lenormant to have been heroes of this
legendary circle of song. However that be, it cannot be
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
245
claimed that either in poetic or artistic ability the Se-
mitic mind displayed any exalted epic powers. So far as
we are able to judge of this work from its scanty remains,
it is devoid of all that we are accustomed to consider
literary merit, and is full of hyperbolical extravagance.
Of the Semitic races, indeed, the Hebrews alone pro-
duced poetry of a high grade of merit. Of this Hebrew
literature we shall speak more fully farther on, and it
must suffice here to say that none of it reached the epic
level. It is, as a rule, lyrical in tendency. Hebrew
literature, however, is not without its heroic characters.
We find them in Noah, Samson, David, Daniel, and
others who might be named; but none of these were^
made heroes of song, but were dealt with in sober prose,
— as we shall find later on was the fate of the heroes
of Roman legend. The Hebrew intellect, indeed, was
largely practical in its tendencies, its imagination was
subdued, and though its literature contains many excit-
ing legendary incidents, these are all couched in quiet
prose, while its poetry fails to rise above the lyric of
worship or of pastoral description. The nearest approach
to an epic poem is the grand book of Job, of unknown
authorship. The literature of Assyria, of which abundant
relics are now coming to light, is yet more practical in
character than that of the Hebrews, and resembles that
of the Chinese in literalness. There is no poetry ap-
proaching in merit the elevated lyrical productions found
in the Hebrew scriptures, and, like the Chinese, it is largely
devoted to annals, topography, and other practical matters.
The Semitic race as a whole appears to have been deficient
in the higher imagination, though possessed of active powers
of fancy. To the latter are due abundant stores of legend,
246
THE ARYAN RACE.
often of a highly extravagant character; but we nowhere
find an instance of those lofty philosophical conceptions,
or of that high grade of epic song or dramatic composi-
tion, which are such frequent products of Aryan thought,
and which indicate an extraordinary fertility of the imagi-
nation in the Aiyan race.
Egypt produced little work of merit from a literary
point of view. The religious literature consists of cer-
tain hymns of minor value, and the well-known “ Ritual
of the Dead.” Similar to this is the “Ritual of the Lower
Hemisphere.” These ritualistic works can scarcely be
called literary productions, and are marked by an inex-
tricable confusion. So far as the display of intellectual
ability is concerned, they are almost an utter void. In
addition to its tyrics, Egypt has one work which has
been dignified with the title of epic, though it should
rather be viewed as an extended instance of those heroic
legends whose confluence is needed to constitute a true
epic production. It forms but the first stage in the pro-
duction of the epic. This poem is credited to a scribe
named Pentaur, and is devoted to a glorification of the
deeds of Rameses II. in a war which that monarch con-
ducted against the Cheta. He seems to have been cut
off from his troops by the enemy, and to have safely
made his Avay back to them. But the poem tells us that
the mighty hero fell into an ambuscade of the Cheta,
and found himself surrounded by two thousand five hun-
dred hostile chariots. Invoking the gods of Egypt, the
potent warrior pressed with his single arm upon the foe,
plunged in heroic fuiy six times into their midst, cov-
ered the region with dead, and regained his army to
boast of his glorious exploits. It is a bombastic and
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
247
inartistic production ; but such as it is it seems to have
struck the Egyptian taste as a work of wonder, and has
been engraved on the walls of several of the great tem-
ples of the land. The most complete copy of it is writ-
ten on a papyrus now in the British Museum.
The remaining antique non-Aryau civilization, that of
China, is utterly void of any epic productions, either in
the ultimate or in the germ. The imagination necessary
to work of this kind was wanting to the Chinese. Their
decided practical tendency is abundantly shown in their
close attention to annalistic history and to such sub-
jects as geography, topography, etc. But no heroic le-
gend exists, and but little trace of the devotional poetry
with which literature begins elsewhere. The Confucian
“ Book of Odes,” which contains all we possess of the
antique poetry of China, is mainly devoted to the con-
cerns of ordinary life. It has little of the warlike vein,
but much of the spirit of peaceful repose. We are
brought into the midst of real life, with domestic con-
cerns, religious feeling, and family affection replacing
the wild “outings” of the imagination which are shown
in all the ancient Aryan literature. After the Confucian
period Chinese song gained a somewiiat stronger flight,
and the domestic ballad wras replaced by warlike strains
and mythologie songs. But no near approach to epic
composition wras ever attained.
If now wre enter upon Aryan ground we find ourselves
at once upon loftier peaks of thought, and in a higher and
purer atmosphere. Almost everywhere epic poetry makes
its appearance at an early stage of literary cultivation as
the true usher to the later and more practical branches
of literature. These antique epic creations of the Aryans
248
THE ARYAN RACE.
may be briefly summarized. As in philosophy, so in po-
etry, India and Greece take the lead; the Ramayana
vying, though at a much lower level of art, with the Iliad
of Greece. Of the two ancient epics of the Hindus, the
Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the former is the older,
while it is more the work of a single hand, and shows few
signs of that epic confluence of legend which strongly
characterizes the latter. And of the two, the Ramayana
is the more mythological, the Mahabharata the more
historical in character.
Legend credits uorthérn India in these early days with
two great dynasties of kings, known respectively as the
Solar and the Lunar dynasties. The Ramayana describes
the adventures of a hero of the solar race. Rama, the
hero, is a lineal descendant of the god of the sun, and
is himself adored as an incarnation of Vishnu. Every-
where in the poem we find ourselves on mythological
ground, and the only historical indication it contains is that
of the extension of the Aryan conquest southward toward
Ceylon. The story describes the banishment of Rama
from his hereditary realm and his long wanderings through
the southern plains. His wife, Sita, is seized by Ravana,
the giant ruler of Ceylon. Rama, assisted by Sugriva, the
king of the monkeys, makes a miraculous conquest of
this island, slays its demon ruler, and recovers his wife,
the poem ending with his restoration to his ancestral
throne.
The style of this poem is of a high grade of merit, and
it takes a lofty rank among the works of the human im-
agination. In the first two sections there is little of
extravagant fiction, though in the third the beauty of its
descriptions is marred by wild exaggerations. It is
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
249
evidently in the main the work of one hand, not a welding
of several disjointed fragments. There are few episodes,
while the whole latter portion is one unbroken narrative,
and there is shown throughout an unvarying skill and
poetical power and facility. It is credited to a single poet,
Valmiki. This name signifies “ white ant-hill,” and it
is very doubtful if it represents a historical personage.
However that be, the Ramayaua is a homogeneous and
striking outcome of ancient thought.
The Mahabharata is a work of very different character.
It is rather a storehouse of poetic legends than a single
poem, and is evidently the work of many authors, treating
subjects of the greatest diversity. It is of later date than
the Ramayana, and more human in its interest, but is far
below it in epic completeness and unity. Y"et it is not
without its central story, though this has almost been lost
under the flood of episodes. It is the epic of the heroes of
the lunar dynasty, the descendants of the gods of the
moon, as the Ramayaua is the heroic song of the solar
race. Bharata, the first universal monarch, who brought
all kingdoms “under one umbrella,” has a lineal descend-
ant, Kuril, who lias two sons, of whom one leaves a hun-
dred children, the other but five. The fathers dying, the
kingdom is equitably divided among these sons, the five
Pandavas and the hundred Kauravas. The latter grow
envious, wish to gain possession of the whole, and pro-
pose to play a game of dice for the kingdom. The
Pandavas lose in this strange fling for a kingdom ; but the
Kauravas agree to restore their cousins to their share in
the throne if they will pass twelve years in a forest and
the thirteenth year in undiscoverable disguises. This
penance is performed; but the Kauravas evade their
250
THE ARYAN RACE.
promise, and a great war ensues, in which the Pandavas
ultimately triumph. "Whether this war indicates some
actual event or not, is questionable; but this part of the
work is well performed, the characters of the five Pandavas
are finely drawn, and many of the battle-scenes strikingly
animated.
But this main theme forms but a minor portion of the
work. It is full of episodes of the most varied character,
and contains old poetical versions of nearly all the ancient
Hindu legends, with treatises on customs, laws, and re-
ligion, — in fact, nearly all that was known to the Hindus
outside the Vedas. The main story is so constantly
interrupted that it winds through the episodes “like a
pathway through an Indian forest/’ Some of these
episodes are said to be of “rare and touching beauty,”
while the work as a whole has every variety of style, dry
philosophy beside ardent love-scenes, and details of laws
and customs followed b}T scenes of battle and bloodshed.
Many of the stories are repeated in other words, and the
whole mass, containing more than one hundred thousand
verses, seems like a compilation of many generations of
Hindu literary work. Yet withal it is a production of high
merit and lofty intellectual conception.
In regard to the Persian branch of the Indo-Aryans, it
37ields us no ancient literary work in this exalted vein.
That considerable legendary poetry existed we have good
reason to believe; but it does not seem to have centred
around a single hero, as elsewhere, but to detail the deeds
of a long series of legendaiy kings, many of wiiom were
undoubtedly historical personages. It was late in the
history of the Persians when these legends became con-
densed into a single work, the celebrated Shah Xamah of
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
251
Firdusi, which forms, as Malcolm observes, “ deservedly
the pride and delight of the East.” It professes to be but
a versified history of the ancient Persian kings, from the
fabulous Kaiomurs to the fall of the second empire under
Yezdijird. But no trace remains of the documents em-
ployed by the poet, while his work is to so great an extent
legendary that it has all the elements of the epic except
that of a central hero. The work itself displays the
highest literary skill and poetical genius, and, as Sir John
Malcolm remarks, u in it the most fastidious reader will
meet with numerous passages of exquisite beauty.” The
narrative is usually very perspicuous, and some of the
finest scenes are described with simplicity and elegance of
diction, though the battle-scenes, in which the Persians
most delight, are by no means free from the Oriental
besetting sin of hyperbole.
Of the epic poetry of Greece, and particularly the great
works attributed to Homer, little here need be said. The
Iliad and Odyssey are too well known to readers to need
any description. Modern research has rendered it very
probable that these works, and the Iliad in particular, are
primitive epics in the true sense, being condensations of
a cycle of ancient heroic poetry. The antique Greek
singers were not without an abundant store of stirring
legends as subject-matter for their songs. These legends
have become partly embodied in poetry, partly in so-called
history; and in them mythology, history, and tradition
are so mingled that it is impossible to separate these con-
stituents and distinguish between fact and fancy. But of
all the legendary lore of the Greeks, that relating to the
real or fabulous siege of Troy seems most to have roused
the imagination of the early bards, and brought into being
252
THE ARYAN RACE.
a series of the most stirring martial songs. These as a
rule centred around the deeds of one great hero, Achilles,
the scion of the gods, the invulnerable champion of the
antique world.
Little doubt is entertained by critics that the Iliad con-
tains the substance of a number of ancient lays devoted
to this one attractive subject. But if so, there can scarcely
be a doubt that these lays were fitted by a single skilful
hand into the epic framework of the Homeric song. AYe
may as well seek to divide Shakspeare into a series of
successive dramatists as to break up Homer into a c}Tcle
of antique poets. Alen of his calibre do not arise in
masses, even in the land of the Hellenes ; and though there
can be little question that older material made its way into
the Iliad, there can be as little question that it was wrought
into its present form by one great genius, and fitted by one
skilful hand into the place which it occupies. Another
theory offered is that the nucleus of the poem and a portion
of its incidents are the work of a single great poet, while
episodes of other authorship were worked into it at a later
period. But a more probable supposition would seem to
be that Homer, like Shakspeare, dealt with heroic legends
of earlier origin, ancient ballads whose substance w*as
worked into the nucleus of the poem by that one great
genius whose vital intellect inspirits the whole song.
This would explain at once the discrepancies that exist
between the subject and handling of the several cantos,
and the considerable degree of unity and homogeneity
which the poem as a whole possesses. It need scarcely
here be said that the Iliad stands at the head of all epic
song, alike in the manner of its evolution, the lofty poetic
genius which it displays, and the exquisite beauty of its
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
253
-
versification. As compared with the Hindu epics, it
displays the artistic moderation of Greek thought in con-
trast with the unpruned exuberance of the Oriental imagi-
nation. Even the gods which crowd its pages are as human
in their lineaments as a Greek statue, and we are every-
where introduced to the society of actual man, with his
real passions, feelings, and sentiments, instead of to a
congeries of phantasms whose like never drew breath in
heaven, earth, or sea.
The Odyssey has been subjected to criticism of the same
character, and with like indefinite results. There can be
no doubt that here also we have to do with one of the
favorite heroes of Greek legend,—the wise, shrewd, hard-
headed old politician Ulysses, in contrast with the fiery
Achilles, uncontrollable alike in his fury and his grief.
They are strongly differentiated types of character, both
to be found in the mental organization of the Greek,
and perhaps chosen from an involuntary sense of their
fitness. We need not here follow Ulysses in his wan-
derings and his strange adventures by land and sea. They
simply indicate the conception of the ancient Greek mind,
yet firmly held in mythologie fetters, of the conditions of
the world beyond its ken. Yet a considerable change had
taken place in the ruling ideas between the dates of the
two poems. The turbulent Olympian court of the Iliad
has almost disappeared in the Odyssey, and Zeus has
developed from the hot-tempered monarch of the Iliad
into the position of a supreme moral ruler of the uni-
verse. If both poems are the work of one hand, which
is now strongly questioned, the poet must have passed
from the ardent and active youth of the Iliad to the re-
flective era of old age and into a period of developed
254:
THE ARYAN RACE.
religions ideas ere he finished his noble life-work with the
Odyssey.
Of the remaining epic work of Greece nothing need be
said. The true epic spirit seems to have died with Homer ;
and though many heroic poems were afterward produced,
they lack the lofty poetic power of the ancient Muse.
But one work need be named here, the Theogony of He-
siod, as at once partly an epic poem, and partly a mytho-
logical record. To a certain extent it may be classed
with the Icelandic Eddas and the Persian cosmogony;
though the scheme which it presents is less connected and
complete, and it cannot lay the same claim to the title of
a philosophy of mythology. On the other hand, it details
many stirring scenes, and its description of the battles
between Zeus and the Titans has an epic power which
approaches that of Milton’s story of the war on Heaven’s
plains.
The epic poetry of Rome may be dismissed with a few
words. That the Romans possessed the vigor of imagi-
nation and the boldness and sustained energy of concep-
tion necessary to work of this description, is sufficiently
attested by the JEneid of Virgil. But it is with a native
epic growth that we are here concerned, not with a second-
ary outcome of Greek inspiration. A study of ancient
Roman history reveals the fact that abundance of epic
material existed. This history is in great part a series of
legends, many of which are doubtless prose versions of old
heroic lays. Cicero remarks that “ Cato, in his Origines,
tells us that it was an old custom at banquets for those
who sat at table to sing to the flute the praiseworthy
deeds of famous men.”1 He further regrets that these
1 Quaestioncs Tuscul. iv. 2.
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
255
lays had perished in his time. Other writers give similar
testimony; and it is highly probable that the stories of the
warlike deeds of Iloratius, Mucius, Camillns, etc., were
largely poetic fictions, designed to be sung in the halls of
the great nobles of these clans. We find here no clustering
of legend round the names of single heroes, as in ancient
Greece. The scope of Homan thought lay below the level
of the demigods. It was practical throughout, and per-
mitted but minor deviations from the actual events of
history. Thus Roman legend is more in the vein of that
of Persia, which was spread over a long line of fabulous
kings, instead of concentrating itself around a few all-
glorious champions. Rome, however, produced no Fir-
dusi to embalm its legends in the life-like form of song.
Yet the history of Livy may almost be called an epic in
prose. It is the nearest approach which Rome made to a
national epic, and prose as it is, the great work of Livy
deserves to be classed among the heroic epics of the
world.
It is in strong confirmation of the intellectual energy of
the Aryans to find that the remaining and more barbaric
branches of the race, equally with the Greeks and Hindus,
produced their epics of native growth. And it is of inter-
est to find that the Teutonic and Celtic epic cycles display
the true epic condition of the concentration of a series
of heroic lays around one great national hero. With the
Teutonic people a native Homer arose to give epic shape
to the floating lays of the past. This cannot be affirmed
of the Celts, whose ancient heroes owed their final glory
to foreign hands.
The Germans possess more than one collection of an-
tique lays, such as the poem of Gudrun, and the Helden-
256
THE ARYAN RACE.
buck, or Book of Heroes. But it is to the Nibelungen-lied
that they proudly point as a great national epic, the out-
growth of their heroic age. Nor is this pride misplaced.
The song of the Nibelung is undoubtedly a great and
noble work, unsurpassed in the circle of primitive warlike
epics except by the unrivalled Iliad. It is full of the
spirit of the old German lays, such as Tacitus tells us the
Germans of his time composed in honor of their great
warriors. It is full also of mythological elements, to such
an extent that it is difficult to discriminate between the
deific and the human origin of its heroes. In its central
hero, Siegfried, the Achilles of the song, and in the heroic
maiden Brunhild, we undoubtedly have mythological char-
acters. But in others, such as Etzel and Dietrich, can be
traced such well-known historical personages as Attila,
the leader of the Iluns, and Theodoric, the Gothic king.
Siegfried and Brunhild appear in other legends besides
those of the Nibelung, and we find the former in the Vol-
sung lay of the Eddas as Sigurd, who fought with the
dragon Fafnir for the golden hoard. This golden hoard
is a moving impulse in the Teutonic legendary cj'cle.
Siegfried has become the possessor of the enchanted treas-
ure of the Nibelungs, and, like Achilles, has been made
invulnerable, except in a spot between his shoulders, which
replaces the heel of Achilles.
But the hoard of gold is a secondary motive in the
Nibelungen-lied. Its mythologie fiction has almost van-
ished, and has been replaced by human motives, human
passions, and human deeds. Man has dwarfed the gods in
this outcome of German thought. It is the truly human
passion of jealousy, the hot rivalry of the two queens,
Brunhild and Kriemhild, and the bitter thirst of the latter
TIIE ARYAN LITERATURE.
257
for revenge, that carry us through its stirring epic cycle
of treachery, war, and murder. There is nothing in the
whole circle of song more terrible than the finale of this
vigorous poem, the pitiless battle for vengeance in the
blood-stained banquet-hall of the Huns. Of the name of the
poet who shaped the old ballads into the enduring form of
the Nibelungen-lied we have no more than a conjectural
knowledge. This work was apparently done about the
year 1200 ; but the lays themselves perhaps reach back to
the fifth or sixth centuries. The epic work was done by a
master-hand, who has moulded the separate songs, sagas,
and legends into a well-harmonized single poem with a
judgment and ability that shows the possession of a vigor-
ous genius.
The Nibelungen-lied is not a courtly poem. It is full
of the rudeness and passion of a barbaric age, though the
conditions of Middle-Age society, with its combined cru-
elty and chivalry, and the sentiment of the age of the
Minnesingers, have not been without their effect in soften-
ing the spirit of the older lays, and in giving a degree of
poetic splendor to the crude boldness of archaic song. It
falls far below the Iliad in all that constitutes a great
work of art, yet it is instinct with a fervent imagination,
a fiery energy, and a truly epic breadth of incident. Its
descriptive power, the fine characterization of its person-
ages, and the skilful handling of the plot, indicate both
an age of considerable literary culture and a high degree
of poetic genius in the narrator, while the Teutonic spirit
is shown in its deep feeling for the profound and mysteri-
ous in human destiny. Opening with a calm and quiet
detail of peaceful incidents, we soon find the poem plung-
ing into the abyss of jealousy, rivalry, murder, and all the
17
258
THE AllYAN RACE.
fiercer passions. The hand of the assassin finds the vul-
nerable spot in Siegfried’s body, the fatal spot left un-
bathed by the magic dragon’s blood, and he falls a victim
to Brunhild’s relentless hate. From this point onward the
poem gathers force as it flows, until it sweeps with the
fury of .a mountain-torrent toward its disastrous finale
in the terrible retribution exacted by the hero’s vengeance-
brooding wife. The death-dealing spirit of ancient trag-
edy finds its culmination in the story of awful bloodshed in
which the murderons Hagen and his companions meet their
deserts at the court of the Huns. The terrible energy with
which the poem closes finds nothing to surpass it in the
most vigorous scenes of Homer’s world-famous works.
One more poem of epic character, the product o'f the
Teutonic Muse, may be here mentioned,—the most archaic
and barbarous of all epic songs. This is the primeval
English epic, the poem of Beowulf,—the work of the
Anglo-Saxons in their days of utter barbarism and heathen-
ism, probably before they left their home on the Continent
to fall in piratical fury on England’s defenceless shores.
We have here no chivalry, no sentiment, no softness. All
is fierce, rude, and savage. The superstitions of an age of
mental gloom form the web of the poem, which is shot
through and through with the threads of mythologie lore.
It is, as Longfellow remarks, “like a piece of ancient
armor, — rusty and battered, and yet strong.” The style
is of the simplest. The bold metaphorical vein of later
Anglo-Saxon poetry is wanting; the poet seems intent
only on telling his story, and has no time for episodes and
metaphors. Yet Beowulf is the far-off progenitor of the
knight-errant of chivalry; and the song is such as the un-
cultured, yet vigorous-minded, bards of the heathen Saxons
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
259
might have sung in the rude halls of half-savage thanes,—
ale-quaffing, stool-seated Berserkers, listening in the light
of flaring and smoking torches to the stirring lay of human
prowess and magic charms.
AYe are told how Beowulf, the sea Goth, fought unarmed
with Grendel the giant, and destroyed the monster, after
the latter had slain scores of beer-drunken doughty Danes
in the great hall of King Hrothgar the Scylding. There
succeeded a terrible fight in the dens whither Beowulf
had followed the GrendeTs mother, a witch-like monster.
Here he slew dragons and monsters that blocked his way;
and after a hard struggle with the grim old-wife, seized a
magic sword which lay among the treasures of her dwell-
ing, and “with one fell blow let her heathen soul out of
its bone house.” 1 To this strongly told bit of heathen lore
are added eleven more cantos, relating the deeds of the
sea-king in his old age, when he fought with a monstrous
fire-drake which was devastating the land. He killed this
creature, and enriched the land with the treasure found in
its cave ; yet himself died of his wounds.
Here again we have the magic treasure of Teutonic lore,
destined to be fatal to its possessor, as the Nibelung
hoard was to the hero Siegfried. It is undoubtedly an out-
growth of Northern mythology, and perhaps had its origin
in the treasures of the dawn or of the summer of ancient
Aryan myth. As an epic, the poem possesses much
merit. It is highly graphic in its descriptions, while the
story of its battles, its treasure-houses, the revels and
songs in the kings’ halls, and the magical incidents with
which the poem is filled, are told with a minuteness that
brings clearly before our eyes the life of a far ruder age
1 Longfellow, Poets and Poetry of Europe, p. 4.
260
TIIE ARYAN RACE.
than is revealed by any other extended poem. As Long-
fellow sa}Ts, “ we can almost smell the brine, and hear the
sea-breezes blow, and see the mainland stretch out its
‘sea-noses’ into the blue waters of the solemn main.”
This rude old song, so fortunately preserved, yields us
striking evidence of the intellectual vigor of the fathers of
the English race.
The Celtic Aryans have been quite as prolific as any
other branch of the race ; and though they present us with
no completed epic, they have preserved an abundance
of those heroic tales which form the basis of epic song.
While the Germans of the Continent and the Saxons of
England were plunged in the depths of barbarism, the
Irish Celts manifested a considerable degree of literary
activity, and produced works on a great variety of subjects,
whose origin can be traced back to the early centuries of
the Christian era. Among these were numerous heroic
legends which centred around two great traditional cham-
pions of the past. One of these cycles of epic la}7s, whose
heroes have almost vanished from the popular mind, relates
the deeds of a doughty hero, Cuchulaind, of whose mighty
prowess man}7 stirring stories are told. The central tale is
the Tain Bo Cuailnge, or the “Cattle Spoil of Cualnge,”
which tells how Cuchulaind defended Ulster and the mystic
brown bull of Cualnge single-handed against all the forces
of Queen Medb of Connaught, the original of the fairy-
queen Mab. Around this vigorously told story cluster
some thirty others, descriptive of the deeds of the hero
Cuchulaind, of Medb the heroine, and of many great cham-
pions of the past. As a whole, it forms a complete epic
cycle, and needed only the shaping and pruning hand of
some able poet to add another to the national epics of
TIIE ARYAN LITERATURE.
261
the world. These legends, as they exist now, are in
twelfth-century manuscripts, of mixed prose and verse;
hut for their origin we must go hack to the vanished hards
of many centuries preceding.
In addition to this epic cycle of heroic song, the Irish
have the fortune to possess another, equally extensive, and
of much more modern date,—the story of Finn, the son
of Cumall, who is still a popular hero in Ireland, though
his predecessor has long heen forgotten. Finn and the
Fennians may have had a historical basis, though there can
he very little of the historical in the stories relating to
them, with their abundance of magical incidents and extra-
ordinary adventures. The Fennian tales probably only be-
gan to he popular about the twelfth century, and new ones
continued to appear till a much later period, one of them
being as late as the eighteenth century. These legends
are very numerous, and they may claim to have found their
epic poet in a bard of alien blood; for it seems certain
that the heroes of both these cycles of songs were popu-
lar in the Highlands of Scotland, and that Macpherson’s
Ossian, though doubtless due, as a poem, to his own
mind, contains elements derived by him from the popular
Highland heroic lore. Ossian is Oisin, the son of Finn,
while the hero himself is represented in Fingal; and char-
acters of both the Irish legendary cycles are introduced.
Much as the statement of Macpherson concerning the
origin of this poem has been questioned, it may have
equal claim to the title of a naturally evolved epic as the
Nibelungen-lied or the Iliad. For in none of these cases
are we aware to what an extent the final poet manipulated
his materials, or how greatly he transformed the more an-
cient lays and legends.
262
THE ARYAN RACE.
The Welsh division of the Celts seems to have been
nearly as active as the Irish in literary work, and pro-
duced its distinct epic cycle in the heroic lays of King
Arthur, — the popular hero of the age of chivalry and of
modern English epic song. This hero of fable, with his
Round Table of noble knights, and the deeds of the
enchanter Merlin, was first introduced to Middle-Age
Europe in the fabulous British history of Geoffrey of
Monmouth, written early in the twelfth century. The
Arthurian legends yielded nothing that we can call an epic,
but they gave inspiration to a marvellous series of rhymed
romances, the work of the French Trouvères. The French,
however, were not without a native hero of romance
of older date in their literature than the Arthur myths.
This was their great King Charlemagne, who, with his
twelve peers, formed the theme of an interminable series
of Chansons de Gestes, or legendary ballads, in which
the epic spirit became diffused through a wide range
of rude and magical romance. King Arthur succeeded
Charlemagne as a popular hero at a period of more cul-
ture and softer manners, and the poems of which he and
his knights form the heroes are the finest in that tedious
series of magical romances with which the Trouvères and
their successors deluged the literature of the chivalric
age, until they finally sank into utter inanity, and were
laughed out of existence by Cervantes in his inimitable
satire of Don Quixote.
In this review of the early poetry of the Aryans there
is one branch of the race }^et to be considered, and one
remaining epic to be described. The Slavonians have
not been without their literary productions, though none
of their poetry has reached the epic stage. But the con-
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
263
-
tiguous Finns, whom we have viewed as nearly related
in race to the Slavonic Aryans, have evolved an epic
poem of some considerable merit, and of interest as the
latest work of this character to come into existence in
the primitive method. Its elements long existed among
the Finnish people as a series of heroic legendary bal-
lads, the work of arranging which into a connected epic
form was due to Dr. Lönnrot, of Helsingfors, who col-
lected from the lips of the peasantry, and published in
1835, the epic production now known as the Kalevala,
the “Home of Heroes.” These legends belong mainly
to the pre-Christian period of Finnish culture. They
centre, in true epic style, round the hero Wainamoinen,
whose deeds, with those of his two brother heroes, form
the theme of a series of connected lays, which fall to-
gether into a poem almost as homogeneous as the Iliad.
It is a work instinct with mythology. It opens with a
myth of the creation of the universe from an egg, and
is full of folk-lore throughout. The heroes of Kaleva,
the land of happiness, bring down gifts from Heaven to
mortals, and work many magic wonders. Yet they min-
gle in the daily life of the people, share their toils, and
enter into their rest. They are, as Mr. Lang says,
“ exaggerated shadows of the people, pursuing on a
heroic scale, not war, but the common business of peace-
ful and primitive men.” Yet the poem is not without
its warlike element, — in the struggle of the heroes of
Kaleva with the champions of Pohjola, the region of
the frozen North, and of Luonela, the land of death.
It ends, after many vicissitudes, in the triumph of Wai-
namoinen and his followers over their foes. Of the
merits of this poem, Max Müller remarks: “From the
264
THE AKYAN RACE.
mouths of the aged an epic poem has been collected,
equalling the Iliad in length and completeness, — nay, if
we can forget for the moment all that tee in our youth
learned to call beautiful, not less beautiful.” In metre
and style it resembles Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” which
imitates it with some exactness.
Though the Slavonic people have produced no heroic
epos of this completeness, they are not without their
heroic poetry. The success attained by Dr. Lönnrot in
studying the popular poetry of Finland has led to like
efforts in Russia, with very marked results. Two great
collections of the epic lays of the Russian people now
exist,—that published by P. N. Ruibnikof in 18G7; and
that of P. R. Kiryeevsky, which is not yet completed.
These lays were collected from the lips of the Russian
peasantiy, the whole country being traversed by the
ardent explorers in their indefatigable search for the
old songs of the Slavonic race. The Builinas, or historic
poems, thus rescued from oblivion seem naturally to fall
into several cycles, each with its distinct characteristics.
Of these the most archaic lays deal with the “Elder He-
roes,” and are evidently of mythologie origin. Closely
connected with these in character is the cycle named after
Vladimir the Great. This is the epos of the “ Younger
Heroes,” — the ancient paladins of the country, like those
of the Charlemagne and Arthur legends. The third is
known as the Novgorod cycle, and deals with the remote
era of historic Russia. The fourth is the Royal or Mos-
cow cycle, and has the personages of actual history for
its heroes.
These Russian songs show no tendency to centre round
any single hero, and thus offer no opportunity for their
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
265
concentration into a single connected poem. In the his-
tory of national epic poetry, in fact, we seem to distinguish
two distinct lines of development. One of these is that
pursued by Persia, Rome, and Russia, in which no single
hero has concentrated the attention of singers, and the
flow of song takes in a long succession of fabulous and
historical champions. The other is that pursued by the
remaining Aryans, in which song centred itself around one
or a few great warriors, mostly of mythological origin, and
the series of songs naturally combined into a connected
narrative. This is the more archaic stage of the two, or
perhaps the one that indicates the most active imagination,
and it is the one to which all the naturally evolved epic
poems of the world are due.
The production of heroic poetry by the Aryan peoples
by no means ceased with their stage of half-barbaric de-
velopment. Numerous valuable epic poems have been
produced in the age of civilization; but of these we need
say nothing, as they are secondary products of the human
mind, and not the necessary outcome of mental evolution.
They are only of value to us here as evidences of the
continued vigor of the Aryan imagination. One only of
these presents any of the characteristics of a naturally
evolved work. This is the great poem of Dante, the
Dicina Commedia, in which the Middle-Age mythology
of the Christian Church has become embodied in song, the
record of a stage of thought which can never be repro-
duced upon the civilized earth. The Inferno of Dante is
the mediaeval expression of a succession of extraordinary
conceptions of the future destiny of the soul. These are
of strict Aryan origin, since all non-Aryan nations have
had very vague conceptions of the punishment of the
266
THE ARYAN RACE.
wicked. The extreme unfoldment of the hell-idea we owe
to the Hindu imagination, and a less exaggerated one
to that of Persia. It would be difficult to conceive of
a more grotesquely extravagant series of future tortures
than those of the Buddhistic liell. These ideas have been
carried by the Buddhists to China, while they gave the
cue to Mohammed and instigated the hell of the Koran.
Their final product is the hell of mediaeval Europe, and
they have attained poetical expression in Dante’s In-
ferno. We may therefore fairty class this poem with the
primitive epics of mankind, as it gives poetic expression
to a stage of human culture and a natively evolved series
of mythical conceptions which have died out with the
advance of civilization, but which were as essential ele-
ments of thought-development as the worship of mythical
deities and the admiration of heroic demigods.
We have given considerable attention to the development
of Aryan epic poetry from the evidence which it presents
of the distinctly superior character of the Aryan imagina-
tion to that of the other races of mankind. None of these
can be fairly said to have reached the epic level of thought.
The Aryans have continuously progressed beyond this
level. But the steps of this progression can here but con-
cisely be indicated. The epic spirit in ancient Greece
unfolded in two directions, one producing the imaginative
historical narrative, the other giving rise to the drama.
The former of these in that actively intellectual land
quickly developed into history in its highest sense, yielding
the rigidly critical and philosophical historical work of
Thucydides. The latter as quickly gave rise to a succes-
sion of the noblest dramatic productions of mankind, those
of the three great tragedians of Greece. Elsewhere in the
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
267
ancient world the course of development was much the
same. Rome produced no native drama of literary value,
but in historic production it rivalled the best work of
Greece, passing from the half-fabulous historical legends
of Livy to the critical production of Tacitus. In this re-
spect practical Rome was in strong contrast to imaginative
India, in which land history remained undeveloped, while
a drama of considerable merit came into existence.
If now we consider the unfoldment of modern European
literature, it is to find it pursue a somewhat different
channel, and reach results not attained in ancient times.
The rhymed romance of chivalry was the direct outgrowth
of the epic spirit in mediaeval Europe, and was accom-
panied by metrical histories as fabulous as the romance.
In their continued development these two forms of litera-
ture deviated. The history of fable gradually unfolded into
the history of fact. Prose succeeded verse, and criticism
replaced credulit}7. The rhymed romance, on its part, de-
veloped into the prose romance, and lost more and more of
its magical element, until it full}7 entered the region of the
possible. It still continued tedious and extravagant, but
had got rid of its old cloak of mythology.
Ancient fiction reached a stage somewhat similar to this,
though not by the same steps of progress. In the later
eras of Greece romantic fictions appeared, comprising
pastoral, religious, and adventurous tales similar to those
which were the ruling fashion of a few centuries ago in
Europe. But there was little trace of the allegory, which
became such a favorite form of literature with our fore-
fathers. In India this development stopped at a lower
stage, that of fable and fairy lore. But in this field
the active Hindu imagination produced abundantly, and
268
THE ARYAN RACE.
directly instigated the Persian and Arabian magical liter-
ature. Through the latter its influence entered modern
Europe. Collections of the Hindu tales were extant in the
Middle Ages, and from them seems to have directly out-
grown the short novel or tale, which attained such popu-
larity and reached its highest level of art in the Decameron
of Boccaccio.
But in more modern times the imaginary narrative has
passed onward to a far higher stage than it attained in the
ancient period, and has yielded the character-novel of our
own day, — a literary form in which the combined imagina-
tion and reason of the Aryan mind have gained their lofti-
est development. The novel is the epic of the scientific
and reflective era. It has cast off the barbaric splendor
of the mantle of verse and of magical and supernatural
embellishments, and has descended to quiet prose and
actual life conditions. It has left the heroic for the do-
mestic stage. It has replaced the outlined characters of
the epic by critical dissections that reveal the inmost fibres
of human character. The stirring action of the epic has
in it been replaced in great part by reflection and mental
evolution. It forms, in short, the storehouse into which
flows all the varied thought of modern times, there to be
wrought into an exact reproduction of the physical, social,
and mental life of man.
The modern drama unfolded at an earlier date than the
novel. But its evolution was a native one only in Spain
and England. Elsewhere it was but an imitation of the
drama of the ancient world. It attained its highest level
in the works of Shakspeare, which indeed prefigured the
modern novel in the critical exactness and mental depth
of their character-pictures and in the reflective vein which
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
269
underlies all their action. As complete reproductions of
intellectual man, and dissections of the human understand-
ing in its every anatomical detail, they probably stand at
the highest level yet reached by the powers of human
thought. The remaining outgrowth of epic narrative, that
of prose history, has likewise attained a remarkable devel-
opment in modern times, and has become as philosophical
and critical as the narrative of ancient times, with few
exceptions, was crude, credulous, and unphilosophical.
If an attempt be made to compare the literary work
of the non-Aryan nations in these particulars with the
Aryan productions, it will reveal a very marked contrast
between the value of the two schools of thought. Noth-
ing need be said of the fictitious or historical literature of
the ancient non-Aryan civilizations. It lay in intellectual
power very far below the level attained by Greece. The
only important literary nation of modern times outside
the Aryan world is China. In the making of books the
Chinese have been exceedingly active, and their literature
is enormous in quantity; the Europeans scarcely surpass
them in this respect. But in regard to quality they stand
immeasurably below the Aryan level.
Though China has produced no epic poem, it has been
very prolific in historical and descriptive literature and in
what is called the drama and the novel. Yet in its his-
torical work it has not gone a step beyond the annalistic
stage. The idea of historical philosophy is yet to be bom
in this ancient land. As for tracing events to their causes,
and taking that broad view of history which converts the
consecutive detail of human deeds into a science, and dis-
plays to us the seemingly inconsequential movements of
nations as really controlled by necessity and directed by
270
THE ARYAN RACE.
• the unseen hand of evolution, such a conception has not
yet entered the unimaginative Chinese mind.
As regards the Chinese drama and novel, they are
utterly unworthy of the name. Character-delineation is
the distinctive feature of the modern novel, and of this
the novel of China is void. It consists mainly of inter-
minable dialogues, in which moral reflections and trifling
discussions mingle, while the narrative is made tedious by
its many inconsequential details. The stories abound in
sports, feasts, lawsuits, promenades, and school exam-
inations, and usually wind up with marriage. There is
abundance of plot, but no character. Their heroes are
paragons of all imaginable virtues, — polished, fascinating,
learned; everything but human. The same may be said
of the Chinese drama. It is all action. Reflection and
character-analysis fail to enter. There are abundance of
descriptions of fights and grand spectacles, myths, puns,
and grotesque allusions, intermingled with songs and bal-
lets. The plot is sometimes very intricate, and managed
with some skill; but often the play is almost destitute of
plot, though full of horrible details of murders and ex-
ecutions. Fireworks, disguised men, and men personating
animals, are admired features of those strange spectacles;
but as for any display of a high order of intellectuality,
no trace of it can be discovered in the dramatic or fictitious
literature of this very ancient literary people.
There is no occasion, in this review, to consider all the
many divisions into which modern Aryan literature has
unfolded. There is, however, yet another of the ancient
and naturally evolved branches of literature to be taken
into account. AVe have said that the general course of
poetic development seems to have been from the religious
THE ARYAN LITERATURE.
271
through the heroic lyric to the epic. But lyric poetry con-
tinued its development, accompanying and succeeding the
epic. It has indeed come down to our own times in a
broad flood of undiminished song. It is with the lyric,
truly so called, that we are here concerned, — the poetry
of reflection, the metrical analysis of human emotion and
thought, in contrast with the poetry of action. To this
may be added the poetry of description, of the love-song,
and of the details of common life, with all their numerous
varieties.
In this field of literature alone the other races come
more directly into comparison with the Aryan. Prolific as
every branch of the Aryan race' has been in lyric song,
the remaining peoples of civilized mankind have been little
less so, and in this direction have attained their highest
out-reach of poetic thought. The Hebrews specially ex-
celled in the lyric. In the poem of moral reflection and
devotion, in the delineation of the scenes and incidents
of rural life, and in the use of apposite metaphor, they
stand unexcelled, while in scope of sublime imagery the
poem of Job has never been equalled. This poetry, how-
ever, belongs to a primitive stage of mental development,
— that in which worship was the ruling mental interest of
mankind. The intellect of man had not expanded into
its modern breadth, and was confined to a narrow range
of subjects of contemplation.
At a later period the Semitic race broke into a second
outburst of lyric fervor, — that of the Arabians in their im-
perial era. But this failed to reach any high standard of
intellectual conception. Their poems were largely devoted
to love and eulogy ; and while they had the same metrical
harmony ns their direct successors, the works of the Trou-
272
THE ARYAN RACE.
baclours and the Minnesingers, they, like these, were
largely void of thought, and lacked sufficient vitality to
give them continued life. In China, again, we find a very
considerable development of non-Aryan lyric song, coming
down from a very early period of the nation. And these
lyrics have often much merit as quiet pictures of life; but
it cannot be claimed that they show any lofty intellectual
power. For the highest development of the lyric, as of
every form of literary work, we must come to the Aryan
world, where alone thought has climbed and broadened,
reaching its highest level and its widest outlook, and sink-
ing to its profoundest depth of analysis of the mental
universe. So far as literature embodies the powers of
the human intellect, it points to the Aryan development
as supremely in advance of that of the other races of
mankind.
XL
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
IT is necessary, in continuation of our subject, to con-
sider the comparative record of the Aryan and the
other races of mankind in respect to the development
of art, science, mechanical skill, and the other main
essentials of civilization. In doing so, certain marked
distinctions make themselves apparent, and it seems pos-
sible to draw broad lines of demarcation between the
principal races. If we consider the Negro race from this
point of view, it is to find a lack of energy both physical
and mental. Nowhere in the region inhabited by this race
do we perceive indications of high powers either of work
or thought. No monuments of architecture appear; no
philosophies or literatures have arisen. And in their
present condition they stand mentally at a very low level,
while physically they confine themselves to the labor ab-
solutely necessary to existence. They neither work nor
think above the lowest level of life-needs; and even in
America, under all the instigation of Aryan activity, the
Negro race displays scarcely any voluntary energy either
of thought or work. It goes only as far as the sharp
whip of necessity drives, and looks upon indolence and
sunshine as the terrestrial Paradise.
The record of the Mongolian race is strikingly different.
Here, too, we find no great scope or breadth of thought,
but there is shown a decided tendency to muscular exertion.
18
274
-
THE ARYAN RACE.
For pure activity of work the Mongolians have been un-
surpassed, and no difficulty seems to have deterred them
in the performance of the most stupendous labors. The
Aryans have never displayed an equal disposition to hand-
labor,— not, however, from lack of energy, but simply that
Aryan energy is largely drafted off to the region of the
brain, while Mongolian energy is mainly centred in the
muscles. The Aiyan makes every effort to save his hands.
Labor-saving machinery is his great desideratum. The
Mongolian, with equal native energy, centres this energy
within his muscles, while his brain lies fallow. The Chi-
nese, for instance, are the hardest hand-workers in the
world. The amount of purely physical exertion which they
perform is nowhere surpassed. The productiveness of
their country, through the activity of hand-labor alone, is
considerably superior to that of any other country not
possessed of effective machinery. But in regard to thought
they exist in an unprogressive state. Little has been done
by the brain to relieve the hand from its arduous labor.
Chinese thought is mainly a turning over of old straw.
The land is almost empt}T of original mental productions.
If we consider the record of the Mongolians of the past
the same result appears. They have left us monuments
of strenuous work, but none of highly developed thought.
China, the most enlightened of Mongolian nations, has an
immense ancient literature, but none that can be compared
with Aryan literature in respect to display of mental ability.
Its highest expression is its philosophy, and that, in
intellectual grasp, is enormously below the contemporary
philosophy of India. But in respect to evidences of
muscular exertion it has no superior. The Great YYall of
China far surpasses in the work there embodied any other
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
275
single product of human labor. Yet it is in no sense an
outcome of advanced thought. It is the product of a
purely practical mind, and one of a low order of intelli-
gence, as evidenced by the utter uselessness of this vast
monument of exertion for its intended purpose. The Great
Canal of China is another product of a purely practical
intellect. Every labor performed by China has a very
evident purpose. It is all industrial or protective. There
are no monuments to the imagination. Y"et the lack of
mental out-reach has prevented any great extension of
labor-saving expedients. At long intervals, during the
extended life of the nation, some useful invention has
appeared, — such as that of the art of printing. Yet for
much more than a thousand years this art has remained in
nearly its original stage, while in Europe, during a con-
siderably shorter period, it has made an almost miraculous
advance. Among the few illustrations of non-practical
labor in China are its pagodas, which seem like the play-
things of a rudimentary imagination wdien compared with
the architectural monuments of Europe.
If now we review the products of the American abo-
rigines, whose closest affinities are certainly with the
Mongolians, we arrive at a similar conclusion. There is
evidence of an immense ability for labor, but of no superior
powers of thought. The quantity of sheer muscular
exertion expended on the huge architectural structures and
the great roads of Peru, the immense pyramids of Mexico,
and the great buildings of Yucatan, is extraordinary. The
huge mounds erected by the ancient dwellers in the
Mississippi valley are equally extraordinary, when we
consider the barbarian condition of their builders. There
is here no lack of muscular energy. No people of native
276
THE ARYAN RACE.
indolence could have erected these monuments, or have
even conceived the idea of them. There is abundant
ability to work displayed, but no great ability to think.
The great roads of Peru are products of a practical mind.
In regard to the remaining works, they were largely incited
by religious thought. They yield us in massive walls and
crude ornamentation the record of the highest imaginative
out-reach and artistic power of the American mind. When
we come to examine them we find that their main ex-
pression is that of hugeness. Their art is rudimentary,
except in some few striking instances in the Maya archi-
tecture and statuary of YTicatan. There are indications
of intellectual ability, but it remains in its undeveloped
stage. Energy is not lacking, but it is mainly confined to
the muscles, and but slightty vitalizes the mind.
We have evidences of similar conditions in the works of
architecture remaining from the pre-Aryan age of Europe.
The huge monoliths of Stonehenge, Avebuiy, and Carnac,
and the Cyclopean walls of Greece and Italy (the latter
possibl}7 of Aryan formation), indicate a race or an era
when muscle was in the ascendant and thought in embiyo.
The idea was the same as that indicated in the structures
of Asia and America, — to astound future man with edifices
that seem the work of giant builders. No indication of
the loftiest conception of architectural art appears,—that
of the simple combination of the ornamental with the
practical, and the restriction of size to the demands of
necessity and the requirements of graceful proportion. To
astonish by mere hugeness is a conception of the unde-
veloped mind. Blind force can raise a mountain mass ;
only higlil}7 developed intellect can erect a Greek temple.
The Melanochroic division of the white race repeats in
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
277
its work the Mongolian characteristic of hugeness. Yet
it indicates superior thought-powers, and has attained
a much higher level of art. In the extraordinary archi-
tectural and artistic monuments of Egypt the power of
sheer muscular vigor displayed is astounding. The world
has never shown a greater degree of energy; but it is
rather energy of the hands than of the mind. The ru-
dimentary idea of vast size is the main expression of these
works; and though they have sufficient artistic value to
show a considerable mental unfoldment, yet hugeness of
dimensions and the power of overcoming difficulties are
their overruling characteristics. The old rulers of Egypt
were eager to show the world of the future what labors they
could perform ; they were much less eager to show what
thought they could embody.
And yet among the monuments of Egypt and those of
the sister nations of Assyria and Babylonia we find our-
selves in a circle of thought of far higher grade than that
displayed by the Mongolian monuments. There is indi-
cated a vigorous power of imagination and an artistic ability
of no mean grade, while strong evidence appears that
but for the restraint of conventionality and the distracting
idea of hugeness, art would have attained a much higher
level. The rudiment of the Greek temple appears in the
architecture of Egypt and Assyria, and the former is a
direct outgrowth from the latter in the hands of a people
of superior intellectuality.
If the Negro is indolent both physically and mentally,
the Mongolian energetic physically but undeveloped men-
tally, and the Melanochroi active physically and to some
extent mentally, in the Aryan we find a highly vigorous
and developed mental activity. Though by no means
278
THE ARYAN RACE.
lacking in ph}Tsical energy, the mind is the ruling agent in
this race, muscular work is reduced to the lowest level
consistent with the demands of the body and the in-
tellect, and every effort is made to limit the quantity of
work represented in a fixed quantity of product. Waste
labor is a crime to the Aryan mind. Use is the guiding
principle in all effort. It is to this ruling agency of the
intellect over the energies of a muscular and active
organism that we owe the superior quality, the restricted
dimensions, and the vast quantit}T of Aryan labor products.
In this work pure thought is far more strongly represented
than pure labor.
In the two great intellectual Aryan peoples of the past,
the Greek and the Hindu, the artistic products are strik-
ingly in accordance with the character of their respective
mentality. The work of the Hindu displays an imagina-
tive exuberance, with a lack of reasoning control. In it
we have rather the idea of vastness than of hugeness, a
vague yet strong mental upreach, while a superfluity, al-
most a wildness, of ornament testifies to the unrestrained
activity of the imagination. There is indicated no con-
trolling idea of utility. The Hindus were almost devoid
of practicality. Their architecture seems an embodiment
of their philosophy, —daring, unrestrained, and unpractical
throughout. In their older cave-temples, such as that at
Elephanta, sheer labor is the strongest characteristic; but
it is labor underlaid with a vigorous sense of art. In the
extraordinary excavations at Ellora an exuberant imagi-
nation carries all before it, and we seem to gaze upon
an epic poem in stone, rendered inartistic by its endless
superfluity of ornament.
In Greek architecture and in all Greek art. on the con-
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
279
trary, are visible the evidences of a subdued imagination.
In breadth and height of imaginative conception the Greek
mind is in no sense iuferior to the Hindu, but it is every-
where restrained by the habit of observation and by a
sense of the logical fitness of things. The Hindu looked
inward for his models, and built his temples to fit the con-
ceptions of his imagination. The Greek looked outward,
found his models in the lines and forms of the visible, and
sought to bring his work into strict conformity with the
grace, harmony, and moderation of external Nature. In
this effort he attained a remarkable success. True art
was born with him. All excess and exuberance disap-
pears, the wings of the imagination are clipped, and its
flights kept down to the level of the visible earth. The
idea of the practical is everywhere combined with that of
the ornamental. The subordination of the mind to the
teachings of visible Nature is rigidly maintained. Greek
art is the actual, reproduced in all its lines and propor-
tions, and with a strictly faithful rendering that detracts
from its value as a work of the intellect, while adding to it
as a work of art.
The defect of Greek art lies in an excess of this re-
straint. It sins in one direction, as Hindu art does in the
other. The wings of the imagination are too severely
clipped. It is undoubtedly a high conception of art accu-
rately to reproduce in marble the exact details and propor-
tions of the human frame. But the Greek fixed his eyes
so closely upon the body that he in a measure lost sight
of its animating soul. This is not the highest conception
of art. To imitate physical Nature exactly, was a great
achievement; and this the Greek artist attained to a de-
gree that can never be surpassed. But to reproduce the
280
THE ARYAN RACE.
mind in the body, is a greater achievement; and in this
direction Greek art made but the preliminary steps.
The great statues of Greece represent types, not indi-
viduals. They display the mental characteristics of fear,
modesty, terror, dignity, and the like, in the gross, not in
detail. Their works are like the combined photographs
by which the general typical features of groups of men are
now reproduced. The special and individual varieties of
these characters are never represented. It is the same
with Greek architecture. It contains the harmonies and
proportions of physical Nature, but it is empty of the deep
spiritual significance with which Nature is everywhere per-
vaded. It is a magnificent body, but it lacks the soul.
The same would doubtless prove to be the case with Greek
painting, had it been preserved. It is largely the case
with Greek literature. Its characters are t}Tpes of man
more largely than they are individual men. Too strict
devotion to the seen is the weak point in Greek thought.
Its flight lies below the level of the unseen.
Modern Aryan art has taken a higher flight. 'While
paying less attention to the bod}T, it has paid more to the
soul. In Gothic architecture the imagination displays a
certain extravagance of manifestation ; but in it there is
embodied something of that profound and awe-inspiring
spiritual significance of Nature which Greek art fails to
manifest. Modern sculpture, while it does not attain to
the Greek level of physical perfection, indicates a higher
ideal of mentality. It represents the individual instead of
the group, and seeks to reproduce human emotion in its
special, instead of its general varieties of manifestation.
But the true modern arts, those best suited for mental em-
bodiment, are painting and music. Of these the former
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
281
attained some ancient development; the latter is strictly
modern as an art. It is mainly in these, and particularly
in music, — the latest production of Aryan art, —that the
soul shows through the thought, and that man has broken
the crust of clay which envelops his inmost being, and
auimated the products of his art with the deep spiritual
significance that everywhere underlies Nature. In the
work of the modern artist, in fact, we seem to have found
the true middle line between the opposite one-sidedness of
Greek and Hindu art. In the former of these the vis-
ible too strongly controls ; in the latter the invisible. In
the one the logical, in the other the imaginative, faculty of
the mind attains undue predominance. The modern artist
seeks to make these extremes meet. He fails to rival the
Greek in the physical perfection of his work mainly be-
cause his thought looks deeper than mere ph}Tsical perfec-
tion ; he fails to display the Hindu exuberance of fancy
from the fact that he never loses sight of the physical.
As a consequence, his work pursues the mid-channel be-
tween the logical and the imaginative, and reproduces
Nature as it actually exists,—everywhere a body ani-
mated by a soul. It is the individual that appears in
modern art, as it is the individual that rules in modern
society. In ancient nations the individual was of secon-
dary importance. The group was the national unit alike
in the family, the village, the gens, the tribe, and the va-
rious subdivisions of the State. The individual was im-
perfectly recognized in society, and became as imperfectly
recognized in art.
In respect to the art of the non-Aryan nations little
need be said. It lay far, often immeasurably, below the
level of Aryan art. What the art of Egypt might have
282
THE ARYAN RACE.
attained if freed from the restraint of conventionalism, it
is difficult to say. It would probably even then have
ended where Greek art began, as we find to be the case
with the less conventionalized art of Assyria. The art of
the Americans was far more rudimentary. In one or two
examples it approaches the character of Greek art, but as
a rule it is rather grotesque than artistic. The same re-
mark applies to the art of modern China. It belongs to
the childhood of thought.
The world of science is almost completely an Ai^an
world. In this important field of thought the non-Aryan
races of mankind stop at the threshold of discovery.
Their most important work is in the formation of the
calendar, to which strict necessity seems to have driven
them. In this direction considerable progress was early
attained. Each of the primitive civilizations measured the
length of the year with close exactness, the Mexicans par- -
ticularly so, their calendar being almost equally accurate
with that of modern nations. This was a work of pure
observation, and astronomical conditions seem strongly to
have attracted the attention of early man. In fact the
only extended series of scientific observations in the far
past of which we are aware, is that of the Babylonians,
in their close watch upon the movements of the stars and
their study of eclipses. As to the accuracy and actual
value of this work, we really know very little. Some sim-
ilar observations were recorded by the Chinese. But
nearly all the actual results of science which the Aryan
has received from the exterior world consist in these few
astronomical observations, — the partial settlement of the
length of the year, its division into months and weeks,
and the similar division of the day into its minor portions.
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
283
On this small foundation the Aryans have built an im-
mense superstructure. Aryan science began with the
Greeks, whose tendency to exact observation made them
critically acquainted with many of the facts and conditions
of Nature. Y"et during' all the early eras of Greek enlight-
enment the activity of the imagination prevented this habit
of observation from producing valuable scientific results.
It was devoted principally to the purposes of philosophy
and art. It was necessary that able men, in whom logic
was superior to imagination, should arise ere science could
fairly begin. The first of these men we find in Thucy-
dides,— a cool, practical thinker, who made history a
science. The second of marked superiority was Aristo-
tle,— the true founder of observational science, which had
but a feeble existence before his day. His teacher, Plato,
was a true Greek, with all the fervor of the Hellenic im-
agination. Aristotle was essentially a logical genius. An
effort to bring himself into conformity with the prevailing
conditions of Greek thought forced him into various lines
of speculation ; but the ruling tendency of his mind was
toward incessant observation of facts for the accumula-
tion of exact knowledge. There had been preceding
Greek naturalists. Several noted physicians, particularly
Hippocrates, had made medical investigations. Aristotle
made use of the work of these men ; but it is doubtful if it
was of much extent or accuracy. To it he added a great
accumulation of facts, while laying down the laws of logi-
cal thought, which he was the first to formulate, and to
which little of value has been since added.
Any review of the subsequent history of science in the
Aryan world is beyond our purpose. It is far too vast a
subject to be even named at the conclusion of a chapter.
284
THE ARYAN RACE.
It will suffice to say that the Greek mind seized with avid-
ity upon the new field of labor thus opened to it. It was
native soil to Greek thought, although it yet lay fallow.
The tendency of the Hellenic race to critical observation
had for centuries been fitting them for the work of re-
search into the facts of Nature ; and had the Greek intel-
lect remained in the ascendant there is no doubt that the
schools of Alexandria would have been the focus of a
great scientific development during the ancient era. As
it was they performed a large amount of good work, and
built a broad foundation for the future growth of this new
product of the human understanding.
-
The Arabian empire served as the connecting-link be-
tween the thought of the ancient and modern world. We
cannot exactly say the Arabians, for this broad empire
clasped the thinkers of nearly all of civilized mankind
within its mighty grasp. It handed down Greek philoso-
phy and science to modern Europe, — the former with many
additions but no improvements, the latter considerably
advanced. The Arabian fancy played with Greek philoso-
phy, but was incapable of developing it, or even of fully
comprehending it. But observation and experiment needed
no vigorous powers of the intellect, and in this direction
many important discoveries were added by the Arabians to
the science of the Greeks. As to the vast results of scien-
tific observation of the modern Aryan world, nothing need
here be said. The coffers of science are filled to bursting
with their wealth of facts.
But science has by no means been confined to observa-
tion. The Aryan imagination has worked upon its store
of facts as actively as of old it worked upon its store of
fancies, and has yielded as abundant and far more valuable
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
285
results. Nature is being rebuilt in the mincl of man. One
by one her laws and principles are being deduced from
her observed conditions, and man is gaining an ever-widen-
ing and deepening knowledge of the realities of the uni-
verse in which he lives. And he is beginning: to “ know
himself ” in a far wider sense than was in the mind of the
Grecian sage when he uttered this celebrated aphorism.
The imagination of the past dealt largely with legend, with
misconceptions of the universe, with half observations,
and devised a long series of interesting but valueless
fictions. The imagination of the present is dealing more
and more with critically observed facts, and deducing
from them the true philosophy of the universe, that of
natural law, and of the unseen as logically demonstrable
from the seen. This great field of intellectual labor be-
longs to the Aryans alone. The other races of mankind
have not yet penetrated beyond its boundaries.
Modern Aryan civilization is made up of many more
elements than those whose development we have hastily
reviewed. One of the most marked of these is that of labor-
saving machinery. This is somewhat strictly confined to
modern times and to the Aryan nations. Beyond this
limit it has never existed in other than its embryo state.
Tools to aid hand-work have been devised, but the employ-
ment of other powers than the muscles of man to do the
labor of the world is almost a new idea, scarcely a trace of
it being discoverable beyond the borders of what we may
denominate modern Arya. The immense progress made
in the development of this idea is comparable with the
unfoldment of science, and together they form the back-
bone of modern civilization. Knowledge of Nature, and
industrial application of this knowledge, have given man a
286
THE ARYAN RACE.
most vigorous hold upon the universe he inhabits; and in
place of the slow, halting, and uncertain steps of progress
in the past, he is now moving forward with a sure and
solid tread, and down broad paths of development as firm
and direct as were the great high-roads that led straight
outward from Rome to every quarter of the civilized world.
The progress of commerce, of finance, and of inquiry
into the underlying laws of social aggregation and political
economy, has been no less great. Here, too, we must
confine ourselves to the limits of the Aryan race, so far as
modern activity is concerned. Commerce, however, had
its origin at a very remote period of human history, and
attained a marked development in Semitic lands before
the Aryans had yet entered the circle of civilization.
There is every reason to believe that the ancient Baby-
lonians had a somewhat extensive sea and river commerce
at a very remote epoch. They were succeeded by the
Phoenicians, who displayed a boldness in daring the dan-
gers of unknown seas that was never emulated by their
successors, the Greeks. The overlaud commerce of the
Phoenicians was also very extensive. Since the origin of
Greek commerce, however, little activity has been shown
in this direction by non-Aryan peoples, with the one ex-
ception of the Arabians, who carried on an extensive ocean
commerce in their imperial era, and who to-day penetrate
nearly every region of Africa in commercial enterprises.
In this respect, also, modern China manifests some minor
activity. Yet the Aryans are, and have been, the great
commercial people of the earth, and have developed mer-
cantile enterprise to an extraordinary degree. Commercial
activity has been handed down in an interesting sequence
from branch to branch of the Aryan race, the Greeks, the
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
287
Venetians, the Italians, the Portuguese, the Spanish, and
the Dutch each flourishing for a period, and then giving
way to a successor. To-day, however, commercial activity
is becoming a common Aryan characteristic, and though
England now holds the ascendency, her position is no
longer one of assured supremacy. A century or two more
will probably find every Aryan community aroused to ac-
tive commercial enterprise, and no single nation will be
able to claim dominion over the empire of trade. That
any non Aryan nation will at an early period enter actively
into competition in this struggle for the control of com-
merce, is questionable. The Japanese is the only one that
now shows a strong disposition to avail itself of the advan-
tages of Aryan progress, China }ret hugging herself too
closely in the cloak of her satisfied self-conceit to per-
ceive that a new world has been created during her long
slumber.
There is one further particular in which comparison
may be made between the Aryan and the non-Aryan
races of mankind,—that of moral development. In this
direction, also, it can readily be shown that the Aryans
have progressed beyond all their competitors. This,
however, cannot be said in regard to the promulgation
of the laws of morality, the great body of rules of
conduct which have been developed for the private gov-
ernment of mankind. It is singular to find that no im-
portant code of morals can be traced to Aryan authorship,
with the single exception of the Indian branch of the
race. There we find the Buddhistic code, which is cer-
tainly one of remarkable character, but which has in
very great measure lost its influence upon the Aryan race.
Alike the morality and the philosophy of Buddhism have
288
THE ARYAN RACE.
almost vanished from the land of their birth, and this
religious system is now nearly confined to the Mongo-
lian race, while its lofty code of moral observance has
lost its value as a ruling force in the modern Bud-
dhistic world.
A second great code of morals is that of Confucius,
and constitutes essentially the whole of Confucianism.
This religion of educated China consists simply of a
series of moral rules, of a character capable of making
a highly elevated race of the Chinese, had they any de-
cided influence. They are studied abundantly, but only
as a literary exercise. The moral condition of modem
China indicates very clearly that the Confucian code is
one of lip-service only. It has made but little impres-
sion upon the hearts of the people.
The third and highest of the three great codes of
morals is of Semitic authorship, being the lofty doc-
trine of human conduct promulgated by Christ. So
far as the mere rules of conduct embraced in it are
concerned, it differs in no essential features from those
already named. Its superior merit lies in its lack of
appeal to the selfish instincts, and its broad human sym-
patli3T. Buddhism warns man to be virtuous if he would
escape from earthly misery. Confucianism advises him
to be virtuous if he would attain earthly happiness. Do
good, that you may attain Nirvana. Do good to others
if you wish others to do good to you. These are the
dogmas of the two great non-Christian codes. Do good
because it is your duty, is the Christ dogma. Sin de-
files, virtue purifies, the soul. All men are brothers,
and should regard one another with brotherly affection.
“Love one another.” This is the basic command of the
OTHER ARYAN CHARACTERISTICS.
289
code of Christ. And in this command we have the high-
est principle of human conduct, — a law of duty that is
hampered by no conditions, and weakened by no promises.
It is singular that the creed of Christ has become the
creed of the Aryan race alone. The Semites, even the
Hebrews, of whose nation Christ was a scion, ignore
his mission and his teachings. But throughout nearly
the whole of the Aryan world it is the prevailing creed,
and its code of morals is to-day observed in a higher
degree than we find in the moral observance of the
remainder of mankind. Elsewhere, indeed, there is abun-
dance of private and local virtue, and rigidly strict ob-
servance of some laws of conduct, though others of equal
value are greatly neglected. But nowhere else has human
charity and the sense of human brotherhood attained the
breadth they display in the Aryan world, and nowhere
else can the feeling of sympathy with all mankind be said
to exist. There is abundance of evil in the Aryan nations,
but there is also abundance of good; and the minor
sense of human duty which is elsewhere manifested is
replaced here with a broad and lofty view that fairly
stamps the Aryan as the great moral, as it is the great
intellectual, race of mankind.
19
XII
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
WHEN history opens, it reveals to ns the Aryan race
in possession of a vast region of the eastern hem-
isphere, including some of its fairest and most fruitful por-
tions. How long it had been engaged in attaining this
expansion from its primitive contracted locality ; what bat-
tles it had fought and what blood shed; what victories it
had won and what defeats experienced, — on all this human
annals are silent. Rut we may rest assured that many
centuries of outrage, slaughter, misery, and brutality lie
hidden in this prehistoric abyss. Millions of men were
swept from the face of the earth, millions more deprived
of their possessions, and even of their religions and lan-
guages, millions incorporated into the Aryan tribes, during
this expansion of primitive Arya. The relations of human
races, which had perhaps remained practically undisturbed
for many thousands of years, were largely changed by this
vigorous irruption of the most energetic family of man-
kind. It was as if an earthquake had rent the soil of hu-
man society, broken up all its ancient strata, and thrown
mankind into new and confused relations, burying the old
lines of demarcation too deeply to be ever discovered.
The Aryan migration displays the marks of a high vigor
for so barbaric an age, and was probably the most ener-
getic of all the prehistoric movements of mankind. It met
with no check in Europe except in the frozen regions of
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
291
the extreme North, and there it was Nature, not man, that
brought it to rest. Such also was probably the case in
northern Asia. The deserts and the mountain-ranges
there became its boundaries. China lay safe behind her
almost impassable desert and mountain borders. In the
south of Asia only the Semites held their own. They
offered as outposts the warlike tribes and nations of Syria
and Assyria. Possibly an era of hostility may have here
existed ; but if so it has left no record, and there is nothiug
to show that the Aryans ever broke through this wall of
defence. But the remainder of southern Asia fell into
their hands, with the exception of southern India with its
dense millions of aborigines, and the distant region of
Indo-China, on whose borders the Aryan migration spent
its force.
Such is the extension of the Aryan world with which
history opens. It embraced all Europe, with the exception
of some minor outlying portions and probably a con-
siderable region in northern Russia. In Asia it included
Asia Minor and the Caucasus, Armenia, Media, Persia,
and India, with the intermediate Bactrian region. These
formed the limits of the primitive Aryan outpush, and it is
remarkable that it failed to pass beyond these borders,
with the exception of a temporary southward expansion,
for two or three thousand years. It made some external
conquests ; but they were all lost again, and at the opening
of the sixteenth century the Aryan race was in possession
of no lands that it had not occupied at the beginning of the
historical period.
This is a striking circumstance, and calls for some in-
quiry as to its cause. "What was the influence that placed
this long check upon the Aryan outflow? The acting in-
292
THE ARYAN RACE.
lluences, in fact, were several, which may be briefly named.
A chief one was the almost insuperable obstacle to further
expansion. Many of the boundaries of the new Aryan
world were oceanic, and the art of navigation was as yet
almost unknown to the Aryan race. Other boundaries
were desert plains that offered no attraction to an agricul-
tural people. The purely pastoral and nomadic days of
the race were long since past. In the East the boundary
was formed by the vast multitudes of Indian aborigines,
who fiercely fought for their homes and made the Hindu
advance a very gradual process. In the South warlike
Assyria formed the boundary, and the Semitic world
sternly held its own.
As Aryan civilization progressed, the great prizes of
ambition were mainly included within the borders of
the Aryan world. There is no evidence of a loss of the
original migratory energy; yet it was no longer an energy
of general expansion, but of the expansion of the separate
branches of the race. The Aryan peoples made each other
their prey, and the outside world was safe from their in-
cursions. The only alluring region of this non-Aryan
world was that of the Semitic nations and of Egypt. This
fell at length before Aryan vigor, and became succes-
sively the prey of Persia, Greece, and Pome. Aud the
thriving settlements which the Phoenicians had established
in northern Africa fell before the arms of Rome. Such
was the only extension of the borders of the Aryan world
which history reveals, and this extension was but a tempo-
raiy one. After a thousand years of occupancy the hold
of the Aryans upon the Semitic and Ilamitic regions was
broken, and the invading race was once more confined
within its old domain.
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
293
It is not necessary to repeat in detail the historic move-
ments of the Aryans of ancient times. These are too well
known to need extended description. They began with
the rebellion of the Medes against Assyrian rale, and with
the subsequent rapid growth of the Persian empire, which
overran Ass3Tria, Syria, and Egypt. At a later date the
Greeks made their great historical expansion, and under
Alexander gained lordship over the civilized Aryan world.
Still later the Romans established a yet wider empire, and
the world of civilization was divided between Rome and
Persia. The finale of these movements was the irruption
of the Teutons upon the Roman empire, which buried all
the higher civilization under a flood of barbarism.
Thus for about a thousand years the great battle-field of
the world had been confined mainly within Aryan limits,
and the other races of mankind had remained cowed spec-
tators, or to some extent helpless victims, of this bull-dog
strife for empire. The contest ended with a marked de-
cline in civilization and a temporary loss of that industrial
and political development which had resulted from many
centuries of physical and mental labor. The Aryan race
had completed its first cycle, and swung down again into
comparative barbarism, under the onslaught of its most
barbarous section, and as a natural result of its devastat-
ing and unceasing wars.
And now a remarkable phase in the history of human
events appeared. The energy of the ancient Aryan world
seemed to have spent its force. That of the non-Aryan
world suddenly rose into an extraordinary display of vigor.
The Aryan expansion not only ceased, but a reverse move-
ment took place. Everywhere wre find its borders con-
tracting under a fierce and vigorous onslaught from the
294
THE ARYAN RACE.
Mongolian and Semitic tribes. This phase of the migra-
tory cycle we may run over as rapidly as we did that of the
expanding phase.
The first marked historical movement in this migratory
series was that of the Huns, who overran Slavonic and
pushed far into Teutonic Europe, and under the fierce
Attila threatened to place a Hunnish dynasty on the throne
of imperial Rome. The next striking movement was the
Arabian, which drove back the wave of Aryan conquest
from the Semitic region, from Egypt, and from northern
Africa, and brought Persia and Spain under Arabian domi-
nation. The third was that of the Turks, who replaced
the Arabian rulers of Persia, conquered Asia Minor, and
finally captured Constantinople and the Eastern Empire,
extending their dominion far into Europe and over the
Mediterranean islands. The fourth was that of the Mon-
gols, under Genghiz Khan and Timur, which placed a Mon-
gol dynasty on the throne of India and made the greater
part of Russia a Mongol realm. We need not mention the
minor invasions, of temporary effect, which broke like
fierce billows on the shores of the Aryan world and flowed
back, leaving ruin and disorder behind them. It will suffice
to describe the contraction of the borders of the Aiyan
region which succeeded this fierce outbreak of the desert
hordes upon the civilized world.
All the historical acquisitions of the Aryans were torn
from their hands. The Semitic region became divided be-
tween the Turks and the Arabians. Egypt and northern
Africa were rent from the Aryan world. In the East, Per-
sia, India, and the intermediate provinces, though with no
decrease in their Aryan populations, lay under Mongol
rule. In the West, Spain had become an Arabian kingdom.
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
295
A Hungarian nation in central Europe was left to mark the
onslaught of the Ilunnish tribes. In eastern Europe, the
Tartars occupied Russia in force, and held dominion over
the greater part of that empire. Farther south, the Turks
were iu full possession of Asia Minor and Armenia, held
the region of ancient Greece and Macedonia, and extended
their barbaric rule far toward the centre of Europe. The
contraction of the aucient Aryan region had been extreme.
As a dominant race they held scarce half their old domin-
ions, while in many regions they had been driven out or
destroyed, and replaced by peoples of alien blood.
Such was the condition of Europe at the close of the
Middle Ages. The first cycle of human history had be-
come completed, the expansion of the Aryans had been
succeeded by a severe contraction, the growth of ancient
civilization had been followed by a partial relapse into bar-
barism, human progress had moved through a grand curve,
and returned far back toward its starting-point. Such
was the stage from which the more receut history of man-
kind took its rise.
-
It may be said that of the energy of the Aryans and the
non-Aryans the former has proved persistent, the latter
spasmodic. No sooner was the condition of affairs above
mentioned established than the unceasing pressure of Aryan
energy again began to tell, and a new process of Aryan
expansion to set in. And this process has been continued
with unceasing vigor till the present day. The Aryans of
Spain began, from a mountain corner, to exert a warlike
pressure upon the Arabian conquerors of their land. Step
by step the Arabs were driven back, until they were finally
expelled to the African shores. Simultaneously a vigorous
effort was made to wrest Syria from its Arab lords. All
296
THE ARYAN RACE.
Europe broke into a migratory fever, and the Crusades
threw their millions upon that revered land. But all in
vain. The grasp of the Moslem was as yet too firm to be
loosened by all the crusading strength of Europe.
At a later date the Mongol hold was slowly broken in
Russia, and the Slavonic Aryans regained control of their
ancient realm, while the invasion of the Turks was
checked, and a reverse movement begun which has con-
tinued to the present day. As for the Magyars of Hun-
gary, their realm has been partly reconquered by Aryan
colonists, its civilization and government are strictly
Aryan, and the Mongolian characteristics of the predomi-
nant race have been to a considerable extent lost. Europe
has been reoccupied by the Aryans, with the exception of
a few Turks who are left upon its borders by sufferance,
and the Mongoloids of the frozen North. In Asia the
Aryan spirit has declared itself less vigorously ; yet Persia,
Afghanistan, and India have declined little if at all in
the percentage of their Aryan populations, while Aiyan
dominance has replaced the Mongol rule in India. As for
the Aryan physical type, it seems to be killing out the type
of the Mongolian in all regions exposed to its influence.
Thus the Osmanli Turks have gained in great measure the
European physical organization, this applying even to the
peasantiy, whose religious and race prejudices must have
prevented much intermarriage with the Aryans. It looks,
in this instance, like an effect of climate, physical sur-
roundings, and life-habits similar to that which, as we
have conjectured, caused the original evolution of the
Aryan race. The same influences may have had much
to do with the loss of Mongolian characteristics in the
Magyars of Hungary.
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
297
But the Aryans have been by no means contented with
this slow and as yet but partially completed recovery of
their ancient realm. Only the mutual jealousy of the na-
tions of Europe permits aliens yet to occupy any portion
of this soil, and it is plainly apparent that the complete
restoration of Aryan government over all its ancient do-
minions is a mere question of time. But the slow steps
of this internal movement have been accompanied by an
external one of vast magnitude. After its long rest the
Ai’3Tan race has again become actively migratoiy, an ex-
pansive movement of great energy has set in, and the
promise is that ere it ends nearty the whole of the habi-
table earth will be under Aryan rule, infused wTith Aryan
civilization, and largely peopled with Aryan inhabitants.
It is the control of the empire of the ocean that has
been the moving force in this new migration. The former
one was checked, as we have said, upon the ocean border.
Navigation had not yet become an Aryan art. But the
rise of ocean commerce gave opportunity for a new out-
push of no less vigor than that of old. "When once the
European navigators dared to break loose from sight of
land and brave the dangers of unknown seas, a new chap-
ter in the history of mankind began. The ships of Europe
touched the American shores, and with phenomenal rapid-
ity the invaders took possession of this new-discovered
continent. Not four centuries have passed, and yet
America, from its northern to its southern extremities, is
crowded with men of Aryan blood, and the aborigines
have in great measure vanished before the ruthless foot-
step of conquest.
In the East the activity of Aiwan migration has had
more difficulties to contend with, yet its energy has been
298
THE ARYAN RACE.
no less declared. The island continent of Australia has
become an outlying section of the Aryan dominions, and
in many of the fertile islands of the Pacific the aborigines
are rapidly vanishing before the fatal vision of the Euro-
pean face. The non-Aryan rulers of India have been
driven out, and England has succeeded to the dominion
of this ancient realm. And finally the u dark continent ”
of Africa is being penetrated at a hundred points by the
foot of the invader, and is already the seat of several
Aryan states.
Side by side with this oceanic migration has been a no
less active and important expansion by land. The Sla-
vonic Allans of Russia had no sooner fairly driven out
their Tartar conquerors and acquired a stable government
than they resumed their ancient migratory expansion and
began to press their way into that vast region of northern
and central Asia upon whose borders the ancient Aryan
advance had paused. Siberia fell before their arms, and
this great but frozen region was added to their empire.
More recently they have taken possession of the western
steppes, seized a considerable region of Chinese Mongolia,
and forced their way deeply into Turkestan. All western
Asia to the borders of China, Afghanistan, and Persia is
to-day a Russian province, and still the march of conquest
goes on. Of the regions of the ancient non-Aryan mi-
gratory activity none, with the exception of Arabia and
Chinese Mongolia, is free from the Aryan grasp or the
preventive influence of Aryan control. The barbarian out-
breaks of the past can never be repeated.
In regard to this modern migrator}7 activity some further
remarks may be made. It is in a great measure a com-
mercial one, and has been very closely governed in its
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
299
movements by those of commerce. It had its origin in
the Phoenician trading-stations, and subsequently in the
Greek colonies. It passed from branch to branch of the
Aryan peoples in strict accordance with the shiftings of
commerce. At the period of the discovery of America
there was a very general commercial activity in the At-
lantic nations of Europe, and all of these simultaneously
took part in the struggle for territory that followed. Por-
tugal, Spain, France, Holland, and England each claimed
a share in the rich prize. At a later date, however, Eng-
land rose to unquestioned supremacy in the commercial
world, and this was accompanied by a similar rise to su-
premacy in colonizing efforts. The England of to-day is
extended until it has its outlying members in almost every
region of the habitable earth. The other Aryan peoples,
on the contrary, with the exception of Russia, have lost
in great measure their national migratory activity, as they
have lost their commercial enterprise. The Celts and
Germans still migrate largely as individuals, but this mi-
gration mainly goes to feed colonies of English origin
and to add to the English-speaking populations of the
earth. The very recent colonizing movements of Germany
are acts of the Government, and it remains to be seen if
they will be supported by the people. The same may be
said of the colonial enterprises of France. They are Gov-
ernmental enterprises only, while the people are among
the least migratory in spirit of any European nation.
Only in England, of all the commercial nations of Europe,
are the people and the Government moving hand in hand.
Thus the Aryan migration has to-day reached a highly
interesting stage. The boundary lines which restrained it
several thousand years ago and which remained its limits
300
THE ARYAN RACE.
until within recent times, have been overleaped, and a new
migration, with all the energy of the old one, is in process
of completion. This migratory movement is at present
largely confined to two of the Aryan peoples, — the Eng-
lish and the Russian. The former has broken through the
ocean barrier ; the latter through the desert barrier, — the
two limits to the ancient migration. The English move-
ment is entirely oceanic, the Russian entirely terrestrial.
The English represents the modern commercial migration ;
the Russian is a survival of the primitive agricultural mi-
gration. These two peoples form the vanguard of the
Aryan race in its double march to gain the empire of the
earth. By a strange coincidence their movements converge
upon one region, — that of India, one of the great prizes
of commerce and war in all the historic ages of mankind.
On the borders of this land the two waves of migration
have nearly met, and the lords of the land and the sea
threaten to join in battle for its mastery. Aryan is again
face to face with Aryan as in the era of the past, and, as
then, the migratory march may end in a fierce strife of
these ancient cousins for a lion’s share of the spoils.
The Aryan outposts of to-day are being pushed forward
so rapidly that they cannot be very definitely named.
The whole of the great continent of America has become
an Aryan region, with the exception of the inaccessible for-
ests of central Brazil and some few minor localities. In
‘ the eastern seas the great island of Australia has become
Aryan ground to the inner limit of its fertile land. In
most of the rich islands of the Pacific the Aryan grasp has
been firmly laid upon the coast-regions, though the abo-
rigines as a rule hold their own internally. The vege-
table wealth of these fertile islands has become the prize
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
301
of Aryan commerce. In Asia one of the ancient Aryan
lands, the kingdom of Persia, is under Mongolian rule,
though its population continues largely of Aryan blood.
But in return the greater portion of the old Mongolian
territory has fallen under Aryan dominion, and the out-
posts of European rule have been pushed across Asia to
the Pacific in the north, and to the western borders of
China in the central region. Again, in the southeast, in
that remote region which stayed the march of the ancient
Aryans, the modern Aryans are slowly pushing their way.
England years ago laid her hand on the western coast-
lands and occupied the maritime region of Burmah, while
she has recently seized on the whole of that kingdom.
France has taken as firm a hold on the eastern coast, over
which she exerts a controlling influence. Siam, the re-
maining independent region of Indo-China, will probably
yet fall under the rule of these enterprising invaders.
Africa tells a somewhat similar story. France has
regained from the Mohammedan rule a large section of
the old Roman region in northern Africa. England has
become the virtual lord in Egypt, and may eventually
become the acknowledged lord. Southern Africa, for a
long distance northward from the Cape, has become
English and Dutch territory. Portugal holds large dis-
tricts on both the eastern and the western coasts. Of the
remaining coast-lands, all the western border and a con-
siderable portion of the eastern are claimed by European
nationalities, while in the region of the Congo a strong
inward movement is on foot, and the International Asso-
ciation lays claim to an immense territory in Central
Africa, — a region with a population of perhaps forty mil-
lions, who do not dream that they have gained new lords
302
THE ARYAN RACE.
on paper. Such is the borcler-land, actual and claimed,
of modern Arya, — the result of four centuries of commer-
cial and colonial enterprise. The Aryan region of old has
been much more than doubled by this new movement. The
hold is yet to some extent simply the grasp of an army
or of a document. But the colonist is advancing in the
rear of the army, and the merchant in the rear of the
document; and the story of Aryan enterprise is but half
told.
If now we seek to review what the other races of man-
kind have done, in rivalry with this energetic movement,
a few words will suffice to tell the tale. The alien outflow
is confined to three peoples alone. The first of these is
the Chinese, some portion of whose crowding millions are
forced to seek other homes afar, and whose strongly
practical disposition has produced a degree of commercial
enterprise. Yet the results of this movement have been
as yet of secondary importance. It has made itself felt
in some regions of the Pacific, and to a minor extent in
America. Yet it can never attain a vigor comparable to
the Aryan while Chinese civilization and Chinese ideas
remain in their present state. The Chinaman is not yet
cosmopolitan like the Aryan ; the world is not his home ;
and wherever he goes he dreams of laying his bones to
rest in Chinese soil. 'While such ideas persist, the Aryans
need fear no powerful competition from this ancient realm.
As for the neighboring Japanese, they have so far shown
no disposition to wander. They are in no sense a migra-
tory people.
The second non-Aryan migratory people is the Arabian.
The migratory spirit which has in all historic times affected
the Semites has by no means died out; and while Europe
HISTORICxVL MIG RATIONS.
303
is grasping the African shores, the Arabs are penetrating
every portion of the interior of that continent. But their
movements are commercial only, not colonial. The sole
political grasp of Arabia on African soil is in the region
of Zanzibar. Elsewhere their political dominion is but
that of the wandering tribe. The Arabs of to-day are not
in the state of civilization requisite to active colonization,
while there is no pressure of numbers in the home region
to enforce a border outgrowth. Thus there can be said to
be no combined Arabian competition with the Aryans for
the political possession of Africa. The empire-forming
enterprise of the Arabians of old has apparently died out;
and while they retain all their ancient commercial activity,
they manifest no inclination to gain political control of
African soil.
The third migration referred to comes from Africa itself.
It no longer exists, but has had the unfortunate effect of
very considerably extending the area of the Negro race,
— the least-developed section of the human family. This
migration has been solely an involuntary and unnatural
one. It is not the outcome of enterprise among the
migrants, but of the enslaving activity of the Aryans, and
has resulted in widely extending the limits and increasing
the numbers of the most unenterprising and unintellectual
of human races. The migration of Africans to the shores
of America has proved a highly undesirable result of
Aryan enterprise, and has produced a rapidly increasing
population of American Negroes, who cannot but remain
an awkward problem for the civilization of the future.
This people has the unlucky characteristic of prolific
increase, and the unsealing of the continent of Africa by
the slave-dealers has proved like the unsealing of the
304
THE ARYAN RACE.
magic jar brought up in his net by the Arabian fisherman.
A living cloud has issued, which cannot be replaced in its
former space, and the sealed-up dwarf has been permitted
to expand to the stature of the released giant. This en-
forced outpour of the African race is one of the several
unfortunate results of the over-greed of Aryan colonists.
It has proved far the most unfortunate feature of modern
migratory activity by its extension of the domain of low
intellectuality upon the earth.
We may close with one further consideration, — that of
the comparative good and evil resulting from this modern
Aryan outgrowth. That it has been conducted brutally,
no one would think of denying. The laws of morality and
of natural right have been abrogated in dealing with alien
races ; and had these been wild beasts instead of men, they
in many cases could not have been more cruelly treated
or rapidly annihilated. Yet if we could strictly compare
the good and evil produced, there can be no question that
the former would, so far as man as a whole is concerned,
far outweigh its opposite.
What are the actual facts concerning the suffering which
the aborigines of the earth have endured from Aryan
hands, and the change for the worse in their condition
produced by Aryan occupation? The treatment of the
American Indian is usually considered as a flagrant ex-
ample of injury to the aborigines. Yet it cannot be
justly said that the Indians of the United States have been
at any time visited with more suffering, and made the
subjects of greater outrage, during the Aryan occupation,
than they were ordinarily exposed to before that occupa-
tion. The preceding period was one of incessant wTar,
outrage, slaughter, and torture of prisoners. Security
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
305
nowhere existed, and it was impossible for any civilizing
progress to take place. The wars which the Indians waged
with the Europeans were but a continuation of those they
had always previously waged. The slaughter of Indians
was in no sense increased, while there was produced a
mitigation of the more revolting features of Indian conflict.
And the Aryan wars with the Indians were waged in the
interests of peace. They have steadily decreased in
violence and frequency, and an increasing justice and
security in the conditions of Indian life have replaced the
old rule of injustice and insecurity, which but for the
European colonization would still have continued. It may
safely be declared, then, that the Indians have been
benefited far more than they have been injured by the
Aryan conquest, and that to-day they exist in a far higher
state of security, comfort, and happiness than they would
have attained if that conquest had not been made.
Similar remarks can be applied to the Aryan conquests
in every region, with the one exception of Spanish Amer-
ica. Here two civilized empires were overturned by
colonists whose civilization was, in certain respects, of
a lower grade, and millions of people were reduced from
a state of plenty, and comparative freedom and happiness,
to one of want, slavery, and misery. And yet, so far as
the actual progress of civilization is concerned, the general
interests of mankind have not suffered by this outrage.
A civilization of a higher grade has succeeded the imper-
fect conditions of the Aztec and Peruvian States, and the
mass of the human inhabitants of these regions are in a supe-
rior condition to-day than they would have been but for the
Aryan conquest. The low conditions of Indian have been
replaced by the high conditions of European civilization.
20
306
-
THE ARYAN RACE.
This Spanish region, however, is the one black spot in
the history of modern migration. Elsewhere the good has
far surpassed the evil. No one can for a moment hold
that the Africans or the Australians are the worse off for
the Aryan settlements upon their soil. Nor can it be
maintained that an extension of these settlements will
work any actual harm to the aborigines. At present they
are in a debased condition, and are subject to constant
outrage and injustice from their rulers or from hostile
bands. The influence of Europeans is steadily in the
interest of peace, security, and prosperity; and fiercely as
they have been often opposed by natives of the countries
colonized, yet as a rule these natives have been fighting
against their own advantage. "Wherever the Aryan race
has become definitely established, and peaceful conditions
succeeded, the condition of the natives has been improved,
the wealth of their country developed, all the needs of
a comfortable life increased, peace has succeeded to war,
security to outrage, and the happiness of mankind has
steadily augmented.
The true effect of Aryan migration has been the ex-
tension of the realm of modern civilization, of Christian
ethics, of stable and just political conditions; of active
industry, peaceful relations, and security in the possession
of property; of human liberty and intellectual unfold-
ment; of commerce and developed agriculture ; of rail-
roads, telegraphs, books, tools, abundance of food, lofty
thoughts, and high impulses; and of the noblest standard
and most unfolded practice of morality and human sym-
pathy the world has yet attained. We can scarcely name
in comparison with this great benefit the small increase of
evil, the degree of human suffering which can be attributed
HISTORICAL MIGRATIONS.
307
to the Aryans alone, in excess of that which would have
existed without them. As a whole it must be admitted
that the Aryan migration has acted and is acting for
the best interests of all mankind ; and it cannot consis-
tently be deprecated for the minor amount of evil it has
originated.
XIII.
THE FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
NE important effect of the long process of human evo-
lution which we have considered in the preceding
pages has been such a mingling of the races of man-
kind as in considerable measure to blur the lines of race-
distinction. This mingling, which began in prehistoric
times, has proceeded with enhanced rapidity during the
historic period, — that of active migration and of decreas-
ing devastation. The movements of savage races and of
races in the lower stages of barbarism are apt to be an-
nihilating ones. Of this we have historic instances in the
wars of the American Indians, of the Mongolian nomads,
and even of the Anglo-Saxon conquerors of England.
The captive must have some value to the conqueror ere
he will be permitted to live, and the practice of slavery
produced the first great amelioration of human brutality.
The captors ceased to burn or otherwise slaughter their
captives when they discovered that a slave was of more
value than a corpse ; and the class of conquered subjects
who had been previously massacred were now set to work.
In modern times a second step forward has been taken.
The captive is no longer made the personal slave, but
merely the political subject of the captor, and the ancient
feeling of hostility to the non-combatant is rapidly dying
out. Migratory peoples no longer make a desert for the
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
309
growth of their colonies, but simply establish their laws
and introduce their customs in all newly occupied regions,
and mingle freely with their new subjects.
The result of this is necessarily a considerable oblitera-
tion of race-distinctions. Such an obliteration has been
visibly going on since the early days of history, while
many traces of its prehistoric activity yet exist. We
have already dwelt upon the probable partial mingling of
the Xanthochroic and Melanochroie races in ancient Arya.
This was succeeded by a considerable fusion of the migrat-
ing Aryans with the aborigines of conquered provinces.
The almost pure Xanthoehroi of the original Celtic migra-
tion appear to have so thoroughly mingled with a super-
abundant population of European aborigines as nearly to
lose their race-characters, and to suffer marked changes in
their mental constitution. In Hindustan a similar min-
gling, though probably a less complete one, took place.
Religious antipathy here acted as a check of growing
intensity to race-amalgamation. An active race-mingling
appears to have taken place in Germany and Russia.
Scandinavia remained the only home of people of pure
Xanthochroic blood. The probability is, as we have al-
ready suggested, that the southern Xanthoehroi had min-
gled with the Melanochroi at a very early period, but that
the infusion of alien blood was much less decided in the
northern section of the race, and that the northern Aryan
migrants were nearly pure Xanthoehroi. Such seems to
be the case from the fact that their most northerly portion
is yet of pure blood, and that this was the condition of the
Celts and Teutons of early history. The main mingling
with the Semitic Melanochroi was probably that of the
southern branches, who may have been, from a very
310
THE ARYAN RACE.
remote period, in direct contact with the Semites. The
mingling of the other Aryan branches with alien races
seems to have mainly taken place after the era of their
migration.
As we have seen in the last section, however, the com-
pletion of the original Aryan migration was succeeded by a
long period in which the main Aryan movements were con-
fined to Aryan lands. There was a very considerable min-
gling of blood between the different branches of the Aryans,
but the amalgamation with alien races was greatly reduced.
Almost no mixture with the Mongolians took place. To
the south, however, there was more mingling, and the Se-
mites and Hamites must have received a strong infusion
of Aryan blood. This period was followed by that of the
Arabian and the Mongolian migrations and conquests,
and a very considerable new blood-mixture occurred upon
Ar}ran soil. In Russia and in the Aryan districts of Asia
this must have added ver}T considerably to the obliteration
of race-lines in those regions. Yet with all the long-con-
tinued amalgamations we have here considered, it is re-
markable with what vigor the Aryan holds his own. ITis
vital energy everywhere bears him up against alien influ-
ences. The main change produced in his race-character-
istics is that of color. He varies greatly from fair to
dark, but his special physiognomy has been nowhere ob-
literated. The Mongolian type of face has nowhere driven
out the Aryan, but, on the contraiy, shows a disposition to
vanish whenever the two races come into contact. In like
manner the Aryan language and the Aryan mentality have
held their own against all opposing influences. This is
the case in Persia and India, which have been the seat of
the fiercest Mongolian inroads, while the Mongolian in-
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
311
vaders of Turkey have lost in great measure the physical
characters of their race, partly by intermarriage, but
equally where no apparent intermarriage has taken place.
The more recent era of Aryan migration has not been an
annihilating one in the ancient sense. Yet it has had a
very marked annihilating effect in a modern sense. The
migrants to America, for instance, have not greatly re-
duced the numbers of the aborigines by the sword ; but
they have largely destroyed them by the contact of civili-
zation. They have brought with them diseases, habits,
and vices to which civilization has become acclimated, but
which have flowed like destroying angels over the barba-
rian lands. Rum and the small-pox have killed far more
than the sword, while the plough has ruined the harvest of
the arrow. In Spanish America hard work and brutality
have had a similar effect. The race-mingling between the
Aryan colonists and the Indians has been comparatively
slight. There has been simply an industrial struggle for
existence, and the Indian, from his non-adaptation to
those new life-conditions, has in great measure vanished
from his ancient localities. His place has been filled by a
less desirable element, — that of the African, whose mil-
lions perhaps fully replace all the vanished aborigines of
America. If so, the non-Aryan inhabitants of America
are as numerous as ever, while they have been lowered in
type both ph}Tsically and mentally by this unfortunate
change.
As to the future of human races in America, no satisfac-
tory decision can be reached. The problem is a highly
complex one. America is a grand storehouse of nations,
the reservoir of the overflow from the Old "World. Between
the Aryan sections of this migration a very free mingling
312
THE ARYAN RACE.
takes place, and there is arising an American race-type of
well-marked character. There has also been considerable
mingling of Aryan with Indian, particularly in Spanish
America. As the Indians become civilized and agricultural
in habits, it is probable that this amalgamation will go on
at an increased rate, and it is quite possible that the In-
dians may finally disappear as a distinct race, swallowed
up by the teeming millions of Aryan colonists. If they
hold their own, it will be in the tropical regions of South
America, where the conditions of Nature are opposed to
the progress of civilization. Yet we can scarcely doubt
that civilization will yet conquer even the Brazilian forests,
and that the debased aborigines of that region will vanish
before it.
The one perplexing problem of America is the Negro.
Between him and the white the race-antipathy seems too
strong for any great degree of amalgamation ever to take
place, while the mulatto has the weakness and infertility
of a hybrid. In tropical America, indeed, there is a quite
free mingling of whites, Indians, and Negroes; but the
result of this amalgamation is a class that greatly lacks
sta3Ting qualities. The American Negro has marked per-
sistence, while there is little promise that he can be raised
to the level of Aryan energy and intellect. Mentally his
only strong development is in the emotional direction, —
the most primitive phase of mental unfoldment. Yet he is
increasing in numbers with a discouraging rapidity. In
this, however, there seems no threat to Aryan domination.
The negro is normally peaceful and submissive. His lack
of enterprise and of mental activity must keep him so.
Education with him soon reaches its limit. It is capable
of increasing the perceptive, but not of strongly awakening
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
313
the reflective, faculties. The Negro will remain the worker.
There is nothing to show that he will, at least for a long
period to come, advance to the rank of the thinker. Of the
two great modern divisions of civilized mankind, the work-
ers and the thinkers, the Negro belongs by nature to the
former class. He will probably long continue distinctly7
separate from the Aryans as a race, — a well-marked
laboring caste among the non-differentiated whites of
America.
As to the future of the continent of Africa, it may pass
through conditions somewhat similar to those that have
taken place in America ; but these changes will be attended
with less barbarity, since the moral status of the white
race has very considerably advanced during the past four
centuries. The wave of Aryan migration has as yet but
begun to break upon African soil. Only in the far South
has it pressed to any extent inward. But an inward pres-
sure has now fairly set in, and it may perhaps not cease
until Africa has come completely under Aryan rule, and is
veiy largely peopled by Aryan inhabitants. The Aryan
settlements in the South promise to become paralleled by
Aryan settlements in the North. Algiers is now a French
province, Tunis is on the road to the same condition, and
Morocco is threatened both by France and Spain, while
Egypt is under English control. The march of events
cannot go backward. There is very little reason to doubt
that the whole region of northern Africa will eventually
come under Aryan influence and become the seat of a
growing Aryan population. And here a decided race-
mingling will very probably take place in the future, as
between the two sub-types of the Caucasian people in the
far past.
314
THE ARYAN RACE.
Central Africa is being invaded by both these sub-types.
Of these invasions the Melanochroic is to a considerable
extent an amalgamating one. Between Arab and Berber
and Negro, probably of close original race-affinity, there
seems very little blood-antipathy; and Africa is full of
sub-types of man, produced quite probably by a free min-
gling of the black with the Melanochroic race. How long
this mingling has been going on, it is impossible to decide,
and it is equally impossible to conjecture to what varied
race-combinations in the far past the present inhabitants
of Africa are due. But it is very evident that the future
dealings of the Aryans with the Africans will not be con-
ducted to any important extent with the race-counterparts
of the American Negro. The American slaves were princi-
pally brought from nearly the only region of Africa inhab-
ited by the typical Negro, and they thus represent the
least-developed people of that continent. The majority of
the African people are by no means lacking in energy and
warlike vigor, nor in the elements of intelligence. Many
of them seem to stand midway in these characteristics be-
tween the pure Negro of the western tropics and the Arabs
and Berbers of the North. And the vanguard of Aryan
migration may meet as hostile and resolute a resistance as
that experienced from the American Indians.
The whole western coast of Africa, and to some extent
the eastern, is at present dotted with Aryan colonies.
None of these penetrate far inward, the unhealthfulness of
the climate more than the opposition of the Negro checking
their advance. But the key to the centre of the continent
has been found in a great navigable river, the Congo,
whose affluents spread far their liquid fingers through that
fertile unknown land. In this line Aryan migration has
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
315
fairly begun its inward march. It will meet with hostile
tribes. Wars will take place. Forcible seizure and ex-
tinguishment of African governments will follow. Aryan
control will be established over African populations. Many
of the Africans will vanish before the Aryan weapons of
rifle and whiskey-bottle. All this may be looked for as
an almost inevitable consequence of the discovery that the
Congo offers a new and valuable channel of commerce.
The railroad past the rapids, and the steamboat on the
river, cannot fail to subdue Central Africa, — far more
quickly, perhaps, than the plough subdued America.
Eventually this inward movement may meet with a north-
ward movement from the South-African settlements. Nor
is it possible at present to decide what may be the final out-
come of English wars in the Soudan and in Abyssinia,
and of French settlements in Algeria. For years past the
Aryan influence in these regions has been steadity on the
increase, and it may eventually make its way deeply into
Africa from these directions toward the Aiyan vanguard
pressing inward from the West. A railroad is already
pushing southward in Algeria, which may eventually
cross the Sahara and reach the long-hidden city of Tim-
buctoo, toward which a railroad is also advancing from the
South. As yet little more has been done than was accom-
plished by the Aryans in America during the sixteenth
century. But there is every reason to believe, from what
we know of the Aiyan and the African character, that
the final result will be the same. Africa will become a
new empire of the Aryans. But the position of the mi-
grants will be rather that of a ruling than of an inhabiting
race. The condition of the Africans is markedly different
from that of the Indians. They are much less warlike, and
316
THE ARYAN RACE.
much more agricultural. They will undoubtedly remain
upon the soil as its cultivators, while the role of the Aryans
will be that of merchants, rulers, and artisans, in ac-
cordance with their position as the thinking and dominant
minority. In fact there is some reason to believe that the
march of events in the future will bring the African and
the American continents into conditions of some degree
of similarity. Through all the warmer regions of America
the Negroes are increasing with great rapidity. They
exist, and long may exist, as a working caste under Ai'3Tan
dominance. Some similar relation of Aryans and Africans
is not unlikely to arise on African soil, and the final
relation of races in the warmer tropics of both hemispheres
may be that here indicated, — a large population of Af-
rican agricultural laborers, adapted by their physical
nature to a tropical climate, and a smaller population of
Aryan merchants, artisans, and rulers, mainly escaping the
deleterious influence of tropical climates by city residence.
In the higher and more healthful tropics and the semi-
tropics the Aryan population must approach in numbers
that of the tropically adapted race ; and it must retain
a great numerical excess, as now, in the temperate re-
gions, to whose climate the Aryan is physically adapted.
That a race-mingling will take place between these two
widely distinct types of man seems now extremely improb-
able. For a very long period to come it is certain that the
physical and mental antipathy which now exists will be in
no important degree overcome, and for many centuries in
the future the demarcation may remain as strongly de-
clared as now. TYhat the final race-relation will be it is
impossible to predict. There is no strong antipathy be-
tween the native races of the temperate zones of the earth,
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACKS.
317
the Aryan, Indian, Mongolian, and Melanoeliroic ; and these
may mingle in an increasing ratio until their race-distinc-
tions in great measure disappear. In such a case the only
marked race-demarcation remaining will be that of white
and black, respectively the man of the temperate and the
man of the tropical climates of the earth. But the Indians
of America and the Melanochroi of Africa have but little
race-antipathy to the Negro, and their offspring is of a
higher type than that of the Aryan and the Negro. It is
possible, therefore, that the pure black may eventually
vanish in an intermediate race, as is already so largely the
case in Africa.
In the island region of the Pacific it is highly probable
that the Aryan dominion, which is now firmly established
in every island of any marked agricultural value, will
grow more and more decided, and that the aborigines,
or their Malayan successors, will eventually fall generally
under Aiyan rule. The lower aborigines will very prob-
ably vanish. They lie too far below the level of civilized
conditions to survive the contact with civilization; and
only those of declared agricultural habits, and the active
Malays, are likely to remain as subjects of the growing
Aryan rule.
-
There remains the probable future of the Aryans in Asia
to pass in review. Here we find almost everywhere the same
determined Aryan advance. During the last century the
Aryan empire in Asia has been very greatly increased in
dimensions. Nearly every trace of non-Aryan rule has
been swept from India. Burmali promises to become an
English province. The eastern coast of Indo-Cliina is
rapidly becoming a French one. If we may judge from
past history, Siam, the only province of that region which
318
THE ARYAN RACE.
yet fully retains its independence, will eventually fall under
Aryan control. Persia, after being successively overrun
by Arab, Turk, and Mongol, is to-day mainly Aryan in
the race-characteristics of its civilized inhabitants. The
Afghans and Belooches are principally Aryan. The whole
of Asia to the north of the regions here mentioned, with
the exception of the Chinese empire, is to-day under Rus-
sian rule, and becoming rapidly overrun by Russian mer-
chants and colonists. That a very general race-mingling
will eventually take place throughout this wide region is
probable. The distinctive Mongolian features and mental
conditions will become modified, and there can be little
doubt that the Slavonic type of language will gradually
crush out the less-cultured tongues of the region named.
In southwestern Asia there remain the Semites of the
desert region and the Turks of Syria and Asia Minor.
The latter would to-day be under Russian rule but for the
jealousy of Europe. As a race they are becoming more
and more assimilated to the Aryans, and their race-dis-
tinction promises completely to die out in the near future.
In regard to government and civilization, they must accept
the Aryan conditions, or fall under Aryan control. There
is no other alternative possible.
If we look, then, over the whole world of the future, it
is to behold the almost certain dominance of the Aryan
type of mankind over every region except two, which alone
have held and promise to hold their own. These are the
regions of Arabia, and China and Japan. In these por-
tions alone of the whole earth do we find a national
energy and the existence of conditions that seem likely to
repel the Aryan advance. T\re may briefly glance at the
possible future of man in these two regions.
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
319
Since history began, Arabia has remained in an almost
unchanged condition. Militant civilization has raged for
thousands of years in the surrounding regions, but Arabia
has lain secure behind her deserts. Kingdoms and em-
pires have risen and fallen everywhere around this silent
peninsula; yet the waves of war have broken in baflled
fury upon its shores. It has poured out its hordes to
conquer the civilized world, but these have brought back
no civilization to its oases. It is to-day what it was three
thousand years ago, — a land defying alike the sword and
the habits of the civilized world. The Egyptian, the
Mongol, the Turk, and the Aryan have alike retired baffled
from its borders and left it to. its self-satisfied sleep of
barbarism. Is this to be the story of the far future as it
has been of the far past? Shall civilization never pen-
etrate the Arabian desert, and Aiyan rule and Aiyan
commerce stand forever checked at the edge of its deadly
wall of sand?
Hardly so. Modern civilization has resources which
even the desert cannot withstand. A plan to conquer the
desert has already been tried in the Soudan, and a similar
one in Algeria. The railroad and the water-pipe may ac-
complish that task in which all the armies of the past
signally failed. The camel, the ship of the desert, cannot
compete with the iron horse, and it is among the probabili-
ties’of the future that commerce will thus penetrate to the
interior of Arabia, and rouse that sleeping land to a vital
activity it has never known. Civilization can scarcely fail
to make its way into the Arabian oases with their enter-
prising populations, Aryan influence to awaken the active-
minded Arabs to a realization of the wealth which lies
undeveloped around them, and the oldest of known lands
320
THE ARYAN RACE.
to join the grand movement of mankind toward the en-
lightenment of the future. Civilization must and wdll
prevail over every land which barbarism now holds in its
drowsy grasp, and the deserts of the world, which have so
long defied its march, may yet become the slaves of the
railroad and the water-pipe.
In regard to China and Japan we have before us but
a question of time. The strong practical sense of their
people has been abundantly demonstrated, and they need
but be made clearly to perceive the advantages of Aryan
methods and habits to adopt them eagerly. Japan has
already realized this fact, and is introducing the conditions
of Western enlightenment with a rapidity that is one of the
most remarkable phenomena in the history of mankind.
Such is not the case with the Chinese. Their long con-
servatism and their high opinion of their intellectual and
industrial superiority have hindered them from fully con-
sidering the advantages possessed by the “outside barba-
rians.” Yet such a state of affairs cannot persist. The
Chinese have the same practical sense as the Japanese ;
and though their acceptance of the conditions of European
civilization may be a slower, it will be as sure a process.
Thought has never been asleep in that old land. It has
simply been moving in the unchanging round of the tread-
mill. If it once escapes into the broader air, the stagnant
conditions of Chinese civilization must give way before it,
and new laws, new industries, and new ideas make their
way into that realm of primitive thought.
We are here concerned with the two peoples of mankind
who are least likely to fall under Aryan domination. Were
they to continue dormant, they could scarcely avoid this
fate. But they are not continuing dormant, and the prob-
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
321
ability is that, ere many years have passed, both China and
Japan will be in a condition to defy Aryan conquest. As
they become open to Aryan ideas, however, they will be-
come more and more open to Aryan settlement, and an
enlivening influence of fresh thought and fresh blood may
thus penetrate to the very central citadel of Mongolian
civilization. 'Work and thought together cannot fail to
bring the antique realm of China into line with the modern
and energetic nations of the Aryan West.
When this condition is realized, the commercial activity
of the Aryans will undoubtedly have a rival. The Chinese
are already actively commercial, and have established
themselves as merchants upon many quarters of the Pacific
region. Their migratory activity is also considerable. In
the future we may look forward to a more vigorous contest
between Chinese and Aryans in both these particulars.
But it is not likely to grow very active until after the
Aryans have become firmly established in every quarter of
the globe. The awakening of China must be too late to
give her any large share of the prize of commercial wealth
and of dominion over new lands. Where the Arvan has
•/
firmly set his foot the Chinaman can never drive him out.
Nor need we look upon such a probable future activity of
the Chinese race as the misfortune which Chinese emigra-
tion appears to us to-day. The Chinaman of the future
will undoubtedly be a higher order of being than the China-
man of the present. He cannot but have new ideas, new
hopes, new desires, and new habits. Into his dull prac-
ticality some higher degree of the imaginative and
emotional must flow from connection and perhaps race-
mingling with the Aryan type of man. It will un-
doubtedly be a slow process to lift the Chinaman from
21
322
THE ARYAN RACE.
the slough of dead thought in which he has so long lain.
Yet we are dealing here with the far future ; and to an
industrious, practical, and thinking people everything is
possible.
Such are some rapid conclusions as to the possible future
relations of human races and the general conditions of
mankind. Doubtless they may prove in many respects
erroneous, and influences which we cannot yet foresee may
arise to vary and control the movements and mingliugs of
mankind. Yet in the past, in despite of all seemingly
special and voluntary influences which have affected the
course of human development, the general and involuntary
have held their own. The thinking and persistently enter-
prising race of Aryans has moved steadily forward toward
dominion in both the physical and the mental empire of the
world. Starting in a narrow corner of the earth, probably
on the border-line of Europe and Asia, it has spread un-
ceasingly in all directions. The contest has been a long
and bitter one. At times the impulsive force of alien
races has checked and turned back the Aiyan march.
Yet ever the Aryan force has triumphed over these ob-
stacles, and the march has been resumed. It is still going
on with undiminished energy, and it will hardty come to a
halt until it has reached the termination above indicated.
The march inward has been as persistent and energetic
as the march outward. The kingdom of the mind has
been invaded as vigorously as the kingdom of the earth.
And the conquests in this direction have been as important
as those achieved over alien man and over the opposing
conditions of Nature. In this direction, indeed, human
progress promises to go on with undiminished energy
after the earthly domain is fully occupied, and physical
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
323
expansion is definitely checked. The mental empire is a
boundless one. Man may lay a girdle around the earth,
but the universe stretches beyond the utmost human grasp.
The kingdom of knowledge has already yielded many
valuable prizes to the intellectual enterprise of Aryan man,
yet it is rich with countless stores of wealth, and in this
domain there is room for endless endeavor. Thought need
not fear any exhaustion of the world which it has set out
to conquer.
If the general conditions displayed at the earliest discov-
erable era of the Aryan race have manifested themselves
persistently till the present time, the same may be declared
in a measure of the more special conditions. The devel-
opment of man has taken place under the force of the in-
herent conditions of his physical and mental nature, and
no matter how the circumstances of history might have
varied, the final result could scarcely have been different
from what we find it. We have endeavored to point out in
preceding sections that the primitive evolution of man led
inevitably to certain political relations, there named the
patriarchal and the democratic. Of these the latter was
the highest in grade, and directly developed, in ancient
Arya, from a preceding patriarchal condition. We find
this stage clearly reached nowhere else among primitive
mankind, though it was closely approached in the Ameri-
can Indian organization, whose early condition strikingly
resembled that of the Aryans.
These two conditions of barbarian organization have
worked themselves out to their ultimate in a very interest-
ing manner. All the early empires arose under patriarch-
al influences and became absolute despotisms. Of these
China is the only one that yet persists from archaic times,
324
THE ARYAN RACE.
though recent kingdoms of the same type have grown up
under Mongolian influence in Persia, Turkey, and Russia.
All the modern Aryan kingdoms outside of Russia and
Persia are more or less democratic, and possess that primi-
tive feature of ancient Ary a, the popular assembly. Pop-
ular representation — a mouthpiece of the people in the
government — is the stronghold of democracy; and to
this the Aryans alone, of all the races of mankind, have
ever firmly held.
It is remarkable how the primitive Aryan principle of
organization has retained its force through all the centuries
of war and attempted despotism, and how clearly it has
established itself in the móst advanced modern govern-
ment. Efforts numberless have been made to overthrow
it. Popular representation has been prevented, despotism
established, and the aid of religious autocracy brought in
to hold captive the minds of men. In Russia the ancient
democratic institutions have been completely overthrown,
as a result of the Mongol conquest, and replaced by a
patriarchal despotism. l"et these efforts have everywhere
failed. Even in Russia the democratic Aryan spirit is
rising in a wave that no despotism can long withstand. In
Germany the recent effort to establish paternal rule is
an evident failure, and must soon succumb to the peaceful
rebellion of the people. In France monarchy has van-
ished. In England it exists only on sufferance of the rep-
resentatives of the people. But in America alone can the
ancient Aryan principle be said to have fully declared
itself, and the government of the people by the people to
have become permanently established.
America may be particularly referred to from the in-
teresting lesson of human development it displays. It
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
325
offers a remarkable testimony to the action of natural law-
in human progress, and the inevitable outworking of con-
ditions in spite of every opposing effort or influence. In
the government of the United States we possess the direct
outcome of the government of ancient Ary a, an unfold-
ment of the governing principle that grew up naturally
among our remote ancestors, with as little variation in
method as if it had arisen without a single opposing effort.
It is the principle of decentralization in government as
opposed to that of centralization. There are but two final
types of government which could possibly arise, no matter
how many intermediate experiments were made. These
are the centralized and the decentralized, the patriarchal
and the democratic. To the persistence of the former it
is necessary that the ruler shall be at once political and
religious despot. He must sway the minds of his people,
or he will gradually lose his absolute control over their
bodies. In China alone does this condition fully exist,
and to it is due the long persistence of the Chinese form
of government. In all the Aryan despotisms of to-day
the autocratic rule can only persist during the continued
ignorance of the people. In none of them is the emperor
a spiritual potentate. With the awaking of general intel-
ligence free government must come.
The Aryan principle of government is that of decentral-
ization. And as no Aryan political ruler has ever suc-
ceeded in becoming the acknowledged religious head of his
people, every effort at despotic centralization has failed or
must fail. Local self-government was the principle of rule
in ancient Arya, and it is the principle in modern America.
There the family was the unit of the government. With
its domestic relations no official dared interfere. The vil-
326
THE ARYAN RACE.
lage had its governmental organization for the control of
the external relations of its families, under the rule of the
people. The later institution of the tribe had to do merely
with the external relations of the villages ; it could not
meddle with their internal affairs.
As we have said, this principle has been remarkably per-
sistent. It unfolded with hardly a check in Greece. In
the Aryan village two relations of organization existed,
— the family and the territorial. In Greece the former of
these first declared itself, and Greek political societ.y
became divided into the family, the gens, the tribe, and
the State. The family idea was the ruling principle of
organization. It proved, however, in the development
of civilization, to be unsuited to the needs of an ad-
vanced government, and it was replaced by the territorial
idea. This gave rise to the rigidly democratic government
of later Attica. It was composed of successive self-gov-
erning units, ranging downward through State, tribe, town-
ship, and family, while the people held absolute control
alike of their private and their public interests. At a later
date the growth of political wisdom carried this principle
one step farther forward, and a league or confederacy of
Grecian States was formed. Unfortunately this early out-
growth of the Aryan principle was possible in city life
alone. Country life and country thought moved more
slowly, and the wrorld had to await, during two thousand
years of anarchy and misgovernment, the establishment of
popular government over city and country alike.
In the United States of America the Grecian com-
monwealth has come again to life, and the vital Aryan
principle has risen to supremac}7. AYe have here, in a
great nation, almost an exact counterpart of the small
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
327
Grecian confederacy. The family still exists as the unit
element, though no longer as a despotism. Then come
successively the ward or the borough, the city or the
township, and the county. Over these extends the State,
and over all, the confederacy or United States. In each
and all of these the voice of the people is the governing
element. And in each, self-control of all its internal
interests is, or is in steady process of becoming, the
admitted principle. It is the law of decentralization car-
ried to its ultimate, each of the successively larger
units of the government having control of the interests
which affect it as a whole, but having no right to meddle
with interests that affect solely the population of any of
the minor units.
Such is the highest condition of political organization yet
reached bv mankind. It is in the direct line of natural
political evolution. And this evolution has certainly not
reached its ultimate. It must in the future go on to the
formation of yet larger units, confederacies of confedera-
cies, until finally the whole of mankind shall become one
great republic, all general affairs being controlled by a par-
liament of the nations, and popular self-government being
everywhere the rule.
This may seem somewhat visionary. Yet Nature is not
visionary, and Nature has declared, in a continuous course
of events, reaching over thousands of years, that there is
but one true line of political evolution. Natural law may
be temporarily set aside, but it cannot be permanently ab-
rogated. It may be hundreds, but can hardly be thou-
sands of years before the finale is reached; yet however
long it may take, but one end can come, — that of the
confederacy of mankind. The type of government that
328
-
THE ARYAN RACE.
naturally arose in the village of ancient Arya must be
the final type of government of the world.
One highly important result must attend this ultimate
condition, — namely, the abolition of war; for the basic
principle of republican government is that of the yielding
of private in favor of general interests, and the submission
of all hostile questions to the arbitrament of courts and
parliaments. Abundant questions rise in America which
might result in war, were not this more rational method
for the settlement of disputes in satisfactory operation.
In several minor and in one great instance in American
history an appeal has been made from the decision of the
people to that of the sword. But with every such effort
the principle of rule by law and by the ballot has become
more firmly established, and admission of this principle
is becoming more and more general as time goes on.
Unfortunately, in the world at large no such method
exists for arranging the relations of states, and many wars
have arisen over disputes which could satisfactorily have
been settled by a congress. This is being more and more
clearly recognized in Europe, and a partial and unacknowl-
edged confederacy of the European States may be said to
exist already. But the only distinct and declared avoid-
ance of war by parliamentary action was that of the Ala-
bama Commission, which satisfactorily settled a dispute
which otherwise might have resulted in a ruinous war
between America and England. This principle of con-
federacy and parliamentary action for the decision of in-
ternational questions is young as yet, but it is grow-
ing. One final result alone can come from it, — a general
confederacy of the nations, becoming continually closer,
must arise, and war must die out. For the time will
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
329
inevitably come when the great body of confederated na-
tions will take the dragon of war by the throat and crush
the last remains of life out of its detestable body. We
can dimly see in the far future a period when war vTill not
be permitted, when the great compound of civilized na-
tions will sternly forbid this irrational, ruinous, and terrible
method of settling national disputes, and will not look
quietly on at the destruction of human life and of the re-
sults of human industry, or the wasteful diversion of in-
dustry to the manufacture of instruments of devastation.
When that age comes, all hostile disputants will be forced
to submit their questions to parliamentary arbitration, and
to abide by the result as individuals submit to-day to the
decision of courts of law. All civilized men and na-
tions of the far future will doubtless deem it utter madness
to seek to settle a dispute or reach the solution of an ar-
gument by killing one another, and will be more likely to
shut up the wTarrior in an insane asylum than to put a
sword in his hand and suffer him to run amuck like a
frantic Malay swordsman through the swarming hosts of
industry. Such we may with some assurance look forward
to as the finale of Aryan political development.
Religiously the antique Aryan principle has similarly
declared itself. Religious decentralization was the con-
dition of worship in ancient Arya, and this condition has
reappeared in modern America. The right of private
thought and private opinion has become fully established
after a hard battle with the principle of religious autoc-
racy, and to-day every man in America is privileged to
be his own priest, and to think and 'worship as he will,
irrespective of any voice of authority.
In moral development the Aryan nations are steadily
330
THE ARYAN RACE.
progressing. The code of Christ is the accepted code in
nearly all Aryan lands. It is not only the highest code
ever promulgated, but it is impossible to conceive of a
superior rule of moral conduct. At its basis lies the
principle of universal human sympathy, — that of interest
in and activity for the good of others, without thought of
self-advantage. Nowhere else does so elevated a code
of morals exist, for in every other code the hope of re-
ward is held out as an inducement to the performance of
good acts. The idea is a low one, and it has yielded low
results. The idea of unselfish benevolence, and of
a practical acceptance of the dogma of the universal
brotherhood of mankind, is a high one, and it is yielding
steadily higher results. Aryan benevolence is loftier in
its g^ade and far less contracted in its out-reach than
that of any other race of mankind; and Aryan moral
belief and action reach far above those displayed by the
Confucian, Buddhistic, and Mohammedan sectaries.
Industrially the Aiyans have made a progress almost
infinitely be}Tond that of other races. The development of
the fruitfulness of the soil; the employment of the energies
of Nature to perform the labors of man ; the extensive in-
vention of labor-saving machinery; the unfoldment of the
scientific principles that underlie industrial operations, and
of the laws of political economy and finance, — are doing
and must continue to do much for the amelioration of
man. It is not with the sword that the Aryans will yet
conquer the earth, but with the plough and the tool of the
artisan. The Aryan may go out to conquer and possess ;
but it will be with peace, plenty, and prosperity in his
hand, and under his awakening touch the whole earth
shall yet “ bud and blossom as the rose.”
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
331
There is but one more matter at which we need glance
in conclusion. In original Arya the industrial organiza-
tion was communistic. Yet we must look upon this as but
a transitional state, a necessary stage in the evolution of
human institutions. In the savage period private property
had no existence beyond that of mere personal weapons,
clothing, and ornaments. In the pastoral period it had
little more, since the herds, which formed the wealth of
the people, were held for the good of all; there was no
personal property in lands, and household possessions were
of small value. In the village period, though the bulk of
the land was still common property, yet the house-lot, the
dwelling, and its contents were family possessions. The
idea of and the claim to private property has ever since
been growing, and has formed one of the most important
instigating elements in the development of mankind. This
idea has to-day become supreme; the only general com-
munism remaining is in government property, and the
principle of individualism is dominant alike in politics, re-
ligion, and industry. Such a progressive development of
individualism seems the natural process of human evolu-
tion. The most stagnant institution yet existing on the
earth is the communistic Aryan village. The progress of
mankind has yielded and been largely due to the estab-
lishment of the right to private property. Nor can we
believe that this right will ever be abrogated, and the
stream of human events turn and flow backward toward
its source. The final solution of the problem of property-
holding cannot yet be predicted, but it can scarcely be
that of complete communism or socialism. The wheels of
the world will cease to turn if ever individual enterprise
becomes useless to mankind.
332
THE ARYAN RACE.
Yet that individualism has attained too great a domi-
nance through the subversion of natural law by force,
fraud, and the power of position, may safely be declared.
Individualism has become autocratic over the kingdom of
industry, and Aryan blood will always revolt against au-
tocracy. In the world of the future some more equitable
distribution of the products of industry must and will be
made. The methods of this distribution no one can yet
declare ; but the revolt against the present inequitable con-
dition of affairs is general and threatening. This condition
is not the result of a natural evolution, but of that preva-
lence of war which long permitted force to triumph over
right, and which has transmitted to the present time, as
governing ideas of the world, many of the lessons learned
during the reign of the sword. The beginning of the em-
pire of peace seems now at hand, and the masses of mankind
are everywhere rising in rebellion against these force-in-
augurated ideas. When the people rise in earnest, false
conditions must give way. But it is a peaceful revolution
that is in progress, and the revolutions of peace are much
slower, though not less sure, than those of war. The final
result will in all probability be some condition intermediate
between the two extremes. On the one hand, inordinate
power and inordinate wealth must cease to exist and
oppress the masses of mankind. On the other hand, abso-
lute equality in station and possessions is incompatible
with a high state of civilization and progress. It belongs,
in the story of human development, to the savage stage of
existence, and has been steadily grown away from as man
has advanced in civilization. The inequalities of man in
physical and mental powers are of natural origin, and
must inevitably find some expression in the natural organi-
FUTURE STATUS OF HUMAN RACES.
333
zation of society. They cannot fail to yield a certain in-
equality in wealth, position, and social relations. We can
no more suppress this outcome of natural conditions than
we can force the seeds of the oak, pine, and other forest
trees alike to produce blades of grass. Enforced equal-
ity is unnatural, in that it is opposed to the natural in-
equalities of the body and mind of man, and it could not
be maintained, though a hundred times enacted. And
the inevitable tendency of even its temporary prevalence
would be to check progress and endeavor, and to force
human society back toward that primitive stage in which
alone absolute communism is natural and possible. To
find complete equality in animal relations we must go to
those low forms of animal life in which there is no discov-
erable difference in powers and properties. The moment
differences in natural powers appear, differences in condi-
tion arise; and the whole tendency of animal evolution
has beeu toward a steadily increasing diversity of powers
and faculties, until to-day there exist greater differences
in this respect in the human race than at any previous
period in history. These mental and physical differences
cannot fail to yield social, political, and industrial diver-
sities, though laws by the score or by the thousand should
be enacted to suppress their natural influence upon human
institutions.
But the existing and growing inequality in wealth and
position is equally out of consonance with the lessons of
Nature, since it is much in excess of that which exists in
human minds and bodies, and is in numerous cases not the
result of ability7, but of fraud, of special advantages in
the accumulation of wealth, or of an excessive develop-
ment of the principle of inheritance. This evil must be
334
THE ARYAN RACE.
cured. How, or by what medicine, it is not easy to de-
clare. No man has a natural right to a position in society
which his own powers have not enabled him to win, nor to
the possession of wealth, authority, or influence which is
excessively beyond that due to his native superiority of
intellect. That a greater equality in the distribution of
wealth than now exists will prevail in the future can
scarcely be questioned, in view of the growing determi-
nation of the masses of mankind to bring to an end the
present state of affairs. That the existing degree of
communism will develop until the great products of human
thought, industry, and art shall cease to be private prop-
erty, and become free to the public in libraries, museums,
and lecture-halls, is equally among the things to be desired
and expected. But that superior intellect shall cease to
win superior prizes in the “ natural selection” of society,
is a theory too averse to the teachings of Nature and the
evident principles and methods of social evolution ever to
come into practical realization in the history of mankind.
INDEX
Aborigines of Europe and Asia, Gl,
G2.
Abraham, patriarchal position of, 115;
ancestral relation to Jews, 1G0.
Abyssinia ns, 17.
iEnotrians, 78.
Afghans, race-type of, 84.
Africa, English settlements in, 298;
Aryan advance in, 301, 315; Arab
advance, 303; probable future con-
dition, 313; race-mingling in Cen-
tral, 314; west-coast colonies, 314;
Congo region, 314; probable effect
on natives, 315; future race-rela-
tions, 31G.
Africans, increase of, in America, 311.
Agassiz on Indians and Negroes of
Brazil, 7, note.
Agglutinative languages, methods of,
198; where used, 198.
Agni, myth of, 144, note.
Agriculture, original localities of, 49.
Ahriman, original myth of, 222; con-
test with Ormuzd, 222; evil crea-
tions, 223.
Ahura Mazda, 222.
Alexandria, scientific schools of, 284.
Algiers, French province, 313; railroad
southward, 315.
Altmark, land-communism in the, 124.
America, Aryan settlements in, 297;
treatment of Indians, 305; decrease
of aborigines, 311; future state of
races, 312; democracy, 324, 325;
rule of law, 328; democracy in reli-
gion, 329; industrial development,
330.
American languages, lack of abstrac-
tion in, 195, 197; word-compound-
ing, 196.
American races, imaginative faculty
in, 25.
American village system, 123, 126;
clan-organization compared with
Aryan, 172.
Americans, muscular energy of the
earlv, 275, 27G; rudimentary art,
282.'
Analysis in language, 203-208; modern
results of, 209.
Anaxagoras, idea of deity of, 241.
Ancestor-worship, 133-35; evidences
of, 137, 138.
Anglo-Saxons, deficiency of abstrac-
tion in language of, 93, 94; system
of law, 175; epic of Beowulf, 258.
Apollo, Cuma?an, statue of, 141.
Aquitani, character of the, 69.
Arabia, permanence of conditions in,
319; security against invasion, 319;
how commerce mav penetrate, 319.
Arabian empire, science in the, 284;
commerce, 28G, 287.
Arabians, poetry of the, 271; their
conquests, 294; driven from Spain,
295; migrations in Africa, 303.
Arabs, affinities of, to the Negro race-
type, 1G, 314.
Architecture, prehistoric European,
27G; Melanochroic, 27G, 277; Egyp-
tian, 277 ; Hindu, 278, 279; Greek,
279; Gothic, 280.
Aristotle, philosophy of, 241, 242;
founds science of observation, 283.
336
INDEX.
Art of the ancients, 278, 280; of the
moderns, 280, 281; of non-Aryans,
2S2.
Arthur, Kin.tr, Welsh legends of, 202;
use of by Trouvères, 242.
Arya, ancient, no State religion in,
153; cradle of liberty, 15-4: devel-
opment of democracy. 187; method
of worship, 219; communism, 301.
Aryan, derivation of term, 90.
Aryan clan, comparison of, with
American, 172; religious freedom,
172, 173; democracy, 173; political
conditions, 174; common duties,
174; blood-revenge, 175; tribal com-
binations, 175 ; clan-council, 17G;
simplicity of organization, 170;
military system, 177; guilds, 177;
chieftainship, 17S, 179.
Aryan family, property of, 109; or-
ganization, 110; persistence, 111;
how composed, 135, 139; religious
system, 13G; symbolism of common
meal, 130.
Aryan languages, persistence of, 37;
loss of names for animals, 42; early
dialects, G1; verbal affinities, 90;
dictionary, 92; physical significance
of original words, 93; comparison
with Semitic, 200; outgrowth from
Mongolian, 201; analytic methods,
206; modern results of analysis, 207;
ancient synthetic complexity, 207;
rapid analysis in Middle Ages, 208;
growth of modern conditions, 209;
attempts to form sub-groups, 212.
Aryan literature, superiority of the,
243; development of epic poem, 243;
compared with non-Arvan, 2G9;
lyric poetry, 270, 271; high intel-
lectuality, 272.
Aryan migrations, effect of primitive,
230; energy, 290; early extension,
231: checks to. 231, 292; internal
movements, 232; conquest of Semi-
tic and Hamitie regions, 292; early
historical movements, 233; rever-
sion,' 293; loss of territory, 234;
expansion resumed, 295; results,
29G; commercial migration, 297;
America occupied, 297, 300; Pacific
islands and India, 298, 300; set e-
ments in Africa, 298; character of
modern, 297-99; extension, 300;
regions occupied, 300, 301; moral
effects, 304; beneficial influences,
303; effect on aborigines, 311; in
Africa, 313-15; moral development,
329, 330.
Aryan mythology, origin of the, 141;
development, 142; heaven-deities,
143; myths of the Vedas, 144.
Aryan philosophy, high character of
the, 233.
Aryan race, 1-5; migratory energy,
11; expanding tendency, 15; deriva-
tion, 16; mental fusion of sub-races,
2G, 218; intellectual comparison,
with yellow and black races, 27;
review of development, 27; linguis-
tic divisions, 28; original home,
30, 37, GO; languages, 32; Asiatic
theory of Aryan home, 38. 39; its
insufficiency, 39, 40, 42; European
theory, 41; argument from lan-
guage, 42; Peschel’s views, 42, 43;
other European theories, 43; climate
and habits, 43, 44 ; pastoral pursuits,
47, 48; change of habits, 49; devel-
opment, 51; the Caucasus as the
primitive seat, 51, 52; early condi-
tion, 57, 58; energy, 59; original
divisions, G4; sub-races, 92; influ-
ences controlling development, 215;
non-specialization, 21G; superiority
of intellect, 217.
Atyan religion, double system of, 132;
mythology, 132; ancestor-worship.
133, 134;* family rites, 135, 130;
burial-customs, 130; secrecy of house-
worship, 134, 138: clan-worship,
139-41; effect of migration on wor-
ship, 145.
Aryan village system, unfoldment of
the, 185.
Aryans, southern migration of the, 74;
developmental influences, 85; agri-
cultural migration, 85; race-min-
gling, 87; linguistic persistence, 87;
build no monuments, 89 ; their
INDEX.
337
record, 90; domesticated animals,
94; pastoral terms, 90; agricultural
customs, 95-97; trees and metals
known, 97; houses, 97; domestic
life, 98; family relations, 98, 99;
hunting customs, 99; navigation,
100; war, 100; knowledge and be-
liefs, 101; religion, 101; political
system, 102; later conditions, 104;
barbarism, 105 ; land-communism,
110; village group, 117; patriarch-
ism, 117; democracy, 118; land-
division, 118; family property, 118,
119; kinship, 139; religious history
of western division, 14G, 147; lack
of priestly authority in West, 150;
political evolution, 188; links of
affinity, 189; comparison of phi-
losophy with other races, 229; fer-
tility of imagination, 240, 200; epic
poetry, 247; comparative powers,
273; superior mental energy, 274,
277, 278; their art, 2S9, 281; science,
282-85: machinery, 285; commerce,
2SG, 287; moral standard, 287-89;
treatment of Indians, 304; results,
305; historical movements, 310; race-
fusions, 310; race-influence on Mon-
golians, 310; in Pacific islands, 317;
in Asia, 317, 31S; comparison with
the Chinese, 321; steady progress,
322; mental conquests, 322, 323;
review of political evolution, 323-
27.
Asia, state of Aryan population in,
290; Russian conquests, 2D8 ; Aryan
advance, 301; Arvan population,
317, 318.